Media pessimism damages SA’s prospects
I WAS seriously depressed about the state of our country, having been continually assailed with frightening predictions of an imminent economic implosion, until a wonderful lady named Anna phoned a talk radio station to put the so-called “crisis” into true perspective.
Anna’s positivity and candour was refreshing amidst a welter of ultra-pessimism.
She questioned why there is such an avalanche of Zumaphobia in South Africa by a section of the local ultra pessimistic media and so-called “economic analysts”, when, compared with many other world leaders, President Jacob Zuma actually comes off very favourably.
As a country, we are not defaulting on our foreign debt commitments like poorly governed bankrupt European nations Greece and Portugal.
Our much denigrated leader is not responsible for slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians by carpet bombing residential areas or strafing them from pilotless drones.
I am personally not a fan of Zuma and he could have handled the removal of Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene and the appointment of David van Rooyen (pictured) much better. Around the world, leaders exercise their sole executive prerogative to reshuffle cabinet colleagues, even with vindictive malice, without being accused of bringing the country to the brink of ruin.
To portray the removal of a cabinet minister, as competent as he has suddenly become to his recent detractors, as a calamitous disaster is absolutely ridiculous over-kill.
Maybe the dismissal was somewhat shortsighted, but definitely not cause for irresponsibly fuelled mass hysteria.
It’s certainly the responsibility of all South Africans to hold our government to account, and if necessary punish them at the polls.
The current administration has strayed so far from the magnificence of Nelson Mandela’s first democratic government that they must be coming close to a deserved ejection from office by the electorate, but let’s not recklessly contribute to a ruinous financial malaise with jaundiced, unbalanced tirades.
I fully agree with Anna that it is not the government or the president that has been fully responsible for causing the freefall of the South African currency. In fact, it is a large section of the South African media, especially the electronic sector with its torrent of pessimism, that has generated the rand’s slippery slide.
What type of alarmist signal does it send to foreign investors when a talk radio host devotes three hours of his show to a vindictive anti-Zuma tirade, portraying the country as a basket case?
If South Africans don’t have the self-belief and the gonads to proudly advocate their country then how can we possibly expect the international community to have the confidence to invest here ?
The international media generally takes its lead from South African editorials. If they portray a country on the verge of an abyss, then that tone is replicated by their foreign colleagues. And foreign investors then take that reportage as gospel.
Mass hysteria in some irresponsible media gullibly replicated by the chattering South African populace will deter investors and lead to the financial markets crashing.
South Africa needs many more optimists like Anna who talk the country up. No country can thrive in a sea of ruinous negativity.
The glass is half full, not half empty, and that’s the message we should be sending to the international community.