The Open Society Foundation of South Africa informed Politicsweb on Thursday that it had rejected a funding proposal from the publication.
Politicsweb has essentially three goals: Firstly, to publish on a daily basis key political documents and state of the day thereby providing a proper grounding for comment on and analysis of developments in South Africa; secondly, to provide a platform for discussions on the key issues facing South Africa, and to foster a culture of debate particularly across race and party political lines; and, thirdly, to publish high level investigative research and critical analysis.
While the site has sufficient (albeit limited) funding - through advertising revenue and a grant from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation - to meet its first two objectives, its resources are too stretched to meet the third on a regular basis.
In the past, the publication has published definitive exposés on inter alia Thabo Mbeki's AIDS denialism, the ANC's hidden involvement in the development of Virodene; the dire state of public schooling for poor black South Africans; how the arms deal was rigged; and, how fraudsters were using weak controls at the company's office (CIPRO) to commit hundreds of frauds.
The project proposal to the OSF would have enabled us to one again produce or commission this sort of high level research and analysis. The sum requested amounted to R35 000 per month over the course of a year.
The application went before the OSF's board on April 20. The members of the board are as follows: Chairperson Zyda Rylands, Managing Director: Foods at Woolworths; Cape Town Advocate Karrisha Pillay; Nomsa Masuku; Director of Corporate Social Investment at Standard Bank; Nomfundo Walaza, CEO of the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre; former Constitutional Court Judge Kate O'Regan; Professor Edgar Pieterse, former Special Advisor to ANC Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool; and Isaac Shongwe of Letsema Investments.
In the interests of transparency we are publishing the core of our project proposal as well as the letter from former ANC cabinet minister and Interim Executive Director of the OSF, Barbara Hogan, (dated May 2 but received on May 9) setting out the reasons for its rejection.
The core of the proposal from Politicsweb to the Open Society Foundation,
"Understanding the past, making sense of the present"
... South Africa is currently emerging from a long period of ANC dominance. The ANC's massive and apparently immovable electoral majority, the fact that it was the party of liberation, and then of state patronage, all combined to give it immense moral and political authority.
This acted to suppress opposition to, and contestation of, even its most objectionable policies. The ANC also sought to make its goals the goals of society as a whole through a deliberate policy of cadre deployment, which saw party loyalists placed in key positions across state and society.
Since Jacob Zuma's challenge to, and eventual defeat of, Thabo Mbeki's third term ambitions at the ANC national conference in Polokwane, in December 2007, the ruling party has begun to fragment.
Many in the losing faction at Polokwane moved into outright intellectual and political opposition to the new ANC leadership. The party state has begun leaking like a sieve - probably the main reason for the introduction of the ‘Secrecy Bill' - and reports on embarrassing state documents are regularly plastered all over the front pages of the weekend newspapers. Today, it is difficult to think of many serious-minded intellectuals willing to stand up and defend the actions of the Zuma administration (even when there is a case to be made in its favour.) The media itself seems to be in a state of perpetual rolling outrage.
Yet to paraphrase Einstein's comment on the splitting of the atom, the ‘Polokwane' revolution, and its repercussions, "changed everything, except the way we think." Even as South Africa is being forced to face up to the consequences of damaging policies adopted - often with very little contestation - by the ANC between 1995 and 2005, the thinking of civil society remains heavily shaped by a long period of ANC hegemony.
Ideologically loaded ANC terms like "transformation" and "350 years of colonial oppression" tend to be used completely uncritically across the board, and are seldom, if ever, interrogated. The Democratic Alliance's efforts to win over a certain section of the black (formerly ANC supporting) electorate means that it too now often lapses into liberation movement jargon. In such circumstances, as George Orwell noted, political writing "consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house." The dominant view of our past is also essentially derived from the ANC's view of our history. This is, in turn, largely shaped by the thesis of Colonialism of a Special Type, as set out in the Road to South African Freedom, the 1962 programme of the South African Communist Party.
The "Understanding the past, making sense of the present" project aims to produce and commission critical analysis both of our past, and the origins of our present challenges. To give two examples of what is envisaged:
Firstly, this year is the centenary of the 1913 Land Act, and as such is a central focus of ANC and other politicians' rhetoric this year. The project would commission or produce critical historical analysis on the origins, provisions and consequences of that Act. It would also publish the key documents around the Act.
Secondly, there is a growing awareness of the dire state of South Africa's education - particularly for the poor. The project would aim to produce and commission work tracing the origins of our present crisis from Verwoerd's policy of Bantu Education, through the effects of ‘ungovernability' on black schooling, to the misguided policies of the ANC post-1994.
The broad goal of the project is to bring greater clarity of understanding about the origins and causes of South Africa's current challenges. This will allow for far more effective responses to these problems, and hopefully prevent misguided policy making which could further compound them.
Letter from Barbara Hogan, Interim Executive Director of the Open Society Foundation, May 2 2013
Thank you for your application dated 22 February 2013.
Your application to the Open Society Foundation for South Africa (OSF-SA) for support in respect of your Understanding the past, making sense of the present project, has been carefully reviewed. We are, however, unable to support your application in this instance.
The proposed project by Politicsweb aligns with the Foundation strategy in its aims to encourage broad participation in the discussion of current affairs and policy issues across party political lines, the Foundation's strategic focus currently falls on supporting content development for community and public media that seek to enhance the ability of marginalised communities to access media and nurture marginalised and under-represented voices.
While Politicsweb provides a valuable news service, the current project proposal is for commentary and investigative content, of which there is an abundance within the South African media sector. Further, it is not specifically aiming to facilitate access to such information by marginalised audiences.
The target audience of Politicsweb comprises politicians, journalists, opinion-formers, policy-makers and politically engaged citizens who have access to a plethora of sources offering opinion and commentary and is thus already well serviced in this regard. For these reasons, while the proposed project is promising, it is not adequately aligned with the current priority area of the Media Programme.
We do hope that you will be successful in securing funds from other quarters in order to undertake this work.
With best wishes
Barbara Hogan Interim Executive Director
OPEN SOCIETY FOUNDATION FOR SOUTH AFRICA
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