There is a story doing rounds in the media charter classes painting a picture of how a leading trade union executive at Bopeu invited a group of journalists for a drinking session at a pub to demonstrate to them the extent to which he was holding the media in thrall. After the drinks got the better of him, the trade union executive called one newspaper editor on his mobile phone and started yelling instructions at him on how an article on Bopeu in the next edition of the paper should read like. When the paper came out, the story was exactly like how the Bopeu chief had instructed. It might be an exaggeration.
But a point is made. Our media has grown excessively gullible, un-assertive and irreversibly undependable. The fight between trade unions Bopeu and Bofepusu has really been a test case for the media’s levels of independence, sanity and maturity. And in all the cases the media has been found wanting. The media’s mercenary-like behavior has tarnished all prospects of a ceasefire between Bopeu and Bofepusu. This week the Court of Appeal advised Bopeu and Bofepusu to iron out their differences, failing which the Court would do it for them. Under the circumstances, the Court’s intervention will with time prove an excise in futility. Both Bofepusu and Bopeu are going for broke.
They are employing what would be best termed as scorched earth tactics. It is sad that too often nobody mentions the flammable substance that is responsible for the blaze ravaging Bopeu and Bofepusu. The media is one such flammable substance. And both Bopeu and Bofepusu are well aware of the extent to which the media has been harmful towards any prospects for peace between them. Tragically, the ordinary reader has been deceptively left out of the loop ÔÇô unaware of the extent to which the media is fueling sectarianism within the labour unions. Bopeu, especially has been receiving an assortment of special favours from media houses that the union has literally captured through the use of its weekly advertising bonanza, much of which is vainglorious serving not much purpose other than caressing the egos and vanity of the leaders. Compared to Bofepusu, Bopeu has been unrepentantly aggressive in using its connections inside the captured newsrooms to blur the line between news and advertising through its blatant, systematic and vociferous use of sponsored content.
Everything else aside, the media’s blithe short-termism, especially their attitude to turn a blind eye to the devastating effects that their behavior has been having on the long term health of the trade union relationships has been reprehensible. It is in this context that the otherwise immensely wise decision by the Court of Appeal that happened midweek, telling Bofepuso and Bopeu to go back and work out their differences should be seen. Owing to some media houses’ insatiable appetite for advertising, the atmosphere has been contaminated, perhaps irreparably so to an extent that guarantees conflict between Bofepuso and Bopeu. Instead of working as a peace maker, at least when it comes to senseless fight between Bopeu and Bofepuso we have seen some newspapers inflaming the differences and overplaying the tensions ÔÇô totally oblivious to civility and unfussed by any claim to decency. In that manner, these media houses have acted exactly like what, a generation ago, the novelist Fredrick Forsyth called “The Dogs of War.”
While others have been backflipping and pandering to the base and divisive instincts of trade union executives, this newspaper, to the editor’s credit has from the beginning made a very difficult decision under the circumstances to invariably turn away all advertising that had the potential to divide the workers movement ÔÇô and trade union leaders can bear me out on this one. When everything is said and done, there is a crude paradox to this media propelled blitz. While the blitz is fuelled by money from the trade unions , it is the trade unions themselves, or worse still their members that will be most affected when the dust settles. It is very clear that Botswana Government wants to get rid of the Bargaining Council. In fact with the recent benchmarking visits by officials from the Office of the President to Canada, it is clear that Government is moving full steam in that direction.
Just what Bopeu and Bofepusu executives will benefit from this remains a mystery. But still it does not make it any less criminal that some media houses, in their quest to milk headless advertising from warring trade unions, have allowed themselves to be patron saints in the surreptitious intentions by Government to reverse the gains made by workers to unionise. It should not take the dissolution of the Bargaining Council before these sections of the media can learn how unhelpful and atrocious their involvement in trade unions wars has been complicit in taking the poor workers back into the age of helplessness against an evil political system that punishes people for daring to speak against those in position of power and privilege.
