Digesting president’s finger-wagging at critical media

It is a media revolution that has been ushered in by the fifth phase government, whose ways of doing things are singularly at odds with what editors were used to since the first phase government to be sure, but more so under the fourth phase government.

The media enjoyed generally unfettered freedom during the ten years of the fourth phase administration while earlier there were accommodations to be made.

What is different with the fifth phase administration is that it has scaled back media freedom in an open and undisguised way, and has consequently returned fairly traditional relationships between the media and the government.

The relationship is no longer based on a notion of participation and constructive criticism, as well as admission of what is functionally a multiparty political environment where a section of the media with ties to opposition parties does not wish success for the government.

This aspect is evidently what the president is not comfortable with - that some quarters may be wishing him to fail.

What the president views as sedition, or cultivating anti-government feelings, is little more than proper opposition in the actual sense of the term, that come what may, there is a section of society fully incapable of being counted among the president’s stream of supporters or admirers.

This section of society, like the mainstream one which supports the political moves and economic policies of the president, is like all of us in the country, endowed with certain inalienable rights in a multiparty context, thus the right to read their thinking in an extended way as it bears on events. The media speaks for them.

Perhaps this matter calls for an open dialogue, which is not likely to be attended by the president, but if civil society can convene such a meeting the government might feel inclined to send representatives.

Let the minister responsible for information, Nape Nnauye, propose an open forum that involves major interest groups in society including political parties, civil society organizations, human rights groups and academic or other institutions.

Let there be an effort to cultivate a broad consensus on political freedom as well as media freedom, for the government to state its case.

An earlier version of such a meeting was being urged since mid last year, that of holding a meeting between the president and leaders of the principal religious groups and denominations.

Unfortunately the meeting is no longer on the cards, in which case it is proper that civil society organizes a meeting on its own, whether or not the government will be interested in participating.

Otherwise a dialogue of the deaf will prevail, where the president tasks the media with supporting his policies and political thrust, governance methods, etc, as if they cannot think on their own.

What is thus at issue here is that there is a lacunae of the concept of liberty, personal freedom and, consequently, media freedom, that there is loose talk of development which covers everything.

Minister Nnauye ought to come to an open forum and say clearly that previous governments were fit to be criticized by the media since they were not working enough for development, or allowed corruption to entrench itself.

He should be prepared to listen to the other point of view, that all those who have held office in the past believed they were doing the right thing, and the work of the media is to present sentiments, feelings, convictions in society, all of them.

Granted that the president doesn’t want to see media orientation which doubts his methods and chances of success, and that it is entirely true that there is a thrust to solve various problems at which he has excelled compared to the others, the issue can’t be settled merely by that reflection.

The fundamental issue is that in a democratic society people will differ about what they think of those in power are doing, and those differences ought to be seen as normal.

As a matter of fact, this is precisely what enabled President Magufuli to be nominated in the first place - because of strident differences within CCM the party’s Congress decided to select a rank outsider to be the party’s flag-bearer.