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Labour Wrap: The Zanufication of SABC?
The sacking of journalists at the SABC in flagrant disregard of the ruling made by the Independent Communications Authority is the latest indication that we are on a slippery slope toward autocracy, says Terry Bell in his latest Labour Wrap. This is what Deputy Public Works Minister Jeremy Cronin referred to 14 years ago as “Zanufication”.
However, Bell adds there is evidence that the journey down that slope may never be completed; that it may be aborted long before a point of no return is reached. He points out that South Africa’s “liberal reformist bulwark” remains in place, that the courts are still free from manipulation, the unions and media remain relatively independent and the Chapter Nine institution serve the common good.
But since the country is clearly on a slippery slope, there is no time for complacency and South Africans should learn not only from what has happened in Zimbabwe and the monarchic tyranny of Swaziland. He maintains that there is a good lesson to be learnt from the events in Turkey over the past week.
While Turkey has a popular image as a paragon of democracy, Bell says it is not. And he maintains this is something its embattled trade union movement and international union organisations can confirm.
Bell sees Turkey’s ruling AK Party as a “putative party dictatorship” under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a situation brought about as the party began to lose its grip on the electorate.
As such, says Bell, the failed military coup at the weekend was a godsend to the regime, a serious unrest incident that provided the excuse to introduce an effective state of emergency.
Within days, in what must have been clearly prepared prepared lists, tens of thousands of civil servants, police, teachers and university personnel were dismissed or suspended, along with nearly 3 000 prosecutors and judges. An estimated 6 000 individuals, many of the them trade unionists, were also arrested.
Turkey has completed a journey that Bell says South Africa should not - and need not - repeat.
* Add your voice or just drop Terry a labour question. Follow Terry on twitter @telbelsa.
