Mziwandile Manto

ATTACK THE MESSAGE? OR DISCREDIT THE MESSENGER? I promised myself I would never dignify anything published by @News24 with a formal response. But its hit piece on Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma demands one. Let me be clear: this is not an endorsement of Jacinta or the March and March movement per se. It is a defence of her right, as much as mine and that of every other South African, to hold this government to account on issues about which we feel passionately. What the editors at News24, huddled around their editorial cauldron, concocting the latest batch of ideological gruel to serve their readers, appear to have missed is one rather inconvenient fact: Jacinta's message resonates with millions of South Africans. And not one of them seems remotely interested in asking the most obvious question of all: Why? Instead, we are served a steaming bowl of hyperbole, histrionics and emotionally charged sound bites. Anything, it seems, to avoid confronting the substance of the discontent. So let us strip away the theatrics and get to the heart of the matter. This government has, from the outset, abdicated its responsibility to serve the best interests of the South African people. And the government we have today - the entire political establishment, not merely one party or faction - has become a malignant mass, a festering cancer on the body politic. The real story isn't that Jacinta is saying things that make News24 uncomfortable. It's that millions of South Africans are listening - because, after decades of broken promises, corruption, incompetence and political indifference, they have every reason to be angry. And perhaps that is the question News24 should be asking itself: not why Jacinta is speaking, but why so many South Africans feel she is worth listening to. Doxxing Jacinta, threatening her, and attempting to portray her as dangerous, as though she herself represents the problem in South Africa, is an exercise in creative deflection. It is far easier to vilify the messenger than confront the message. Far easier to intimidate a citizen than answer the questions she is asking. And far easier to manufacture a public enemy than acknowledge the failures of those who actually hold power. When the spotlight falls on the messenger rather than the message, ask yourself what, exactly, they are trying to distract you from.