South African newspaper ethics and the politics of cultural belonging: Reflections on The Spear

Introduction

On 11 May 2012, City Press, a local ‘black’ Sunday newspaper, published a review of an art exhibition by local ‘white artist’, Brett Murray, titled ‘Hail to the Thief II’ (http://www.citypress.co.za/lifestyle/white-noise-20120511/). The article was accompanied by photographs of various exhibits which were satirical works critical of aspects of the ANC government’s politics: their misuse of public funds, the lack of public accountability, what has become known as their political culture of ‘tender-preneurialism’ in which African National Congress (ANC)/government cadres win business contracts/tenders, and the development of a culture of elite governance, unaccountability and untouchability. These issues are figured in work such as Johnnie Walker … ‘Forward Comrades’; Amandla, We demand Chivas, BMWs and Bribes; ANC logo with ‘for sale’ and ‘sold’ signs; and ANC … get out of jail free card (http://www.goodman-gallery.com/exhibitions/265). Another painting, The Spear: a portrait of Jacob Zuma, was a parody of the president based on the iconic image of Lenin – but with his penis exposed (https://www.google.co.za/search?q=the+spear+a+portrait+of+jacob+zuma&biw=1920&bih=932&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=KGprVPrABo7WasX5gZgC&ved=0CDkQsAQ). The publication of the photograph provoked a furore, leading first to the Editor, Ferial Haffajee’s defence of her decision to publish the image: ‘The spear of the nation stays up’ was the headline to her column in City Press (18 May 2012). She explained her position:

To ask us now, as the ANC has done, to take down an image from our website is to ask us to participate in an act of censorship. As journalists worth our salt, we can’t. (Haffajee, 2012b)

But 10 days later, she rescinded her decision: ‘The spear is down – out of care and fear’ (City Press headline, 28 May 2012; Haffajee, 2012a).

Writing about the difficulties of ethical decision-making, Ward notes that such decisions should be a ‘reasoned, principled, position’. He also reminds us that ‘[S]ome ethical questions will require reflection on our basic values and the purpose of human society’ (Ronning, 2002: 5; Ward, n.d.). But the basis of such ‘reasoned and principled’ positions is often not clear-cut. And in societies, such as post-1994 South Africa, riven with class, gender, racial and ethnic divides, these decisions often beg questions about ‘whose values’ are the reference point and what we are trying to achieve in our ‘new society’.

The aim of this article is to deepen the discussion about media ethics in South Africa and perhaps by extension to other African post-colonial societies in which cultural and ethnic identifications are often as strong as, or stronger than, nationalist ones. These differences inform readers’ responses to media representations which may challenge certain beliefs. As the publication of The Spear was a recent occasion which evidenced such social differences, I use conceptual frameworks to probe the City Press Editor’s published dilemmas ¹ about her decision to publish, and then retract, the photographic image of The Spear from the newspaper’s website. The decision to publish is based on her understanding of the South African Constitution which protects Freedom of Expression, but also the Right to Dignity. Her second decision, the withdrawal of the ‘offending image’, is based on a consideration of ‘care’ with regard to reducing social antagonism: cognisant of ‘the national interest’, and a fear for her own safety and that of her journalists and newspaper sellers.

In exploring the dilemmas faced by Haffajee, I first probe the legal discourses that informed her decision by looking beyond the South African Constitution to a consideration of different kinds of legal theory which underpin particular kinds of legal frameworks. I consider Critical Legal Studies, including Critical Race Theory, both of which question how the system of law is constructed and whom it benefits. These perspectives question the very basis of an apparently simple ‘rights-based system’ of law in which the Right to Freedom of Expression is often (in South Africa) pitted against the Rights to Dignity and Equality. It is clear that the political and ethical dilemma of interpreting these two sets of rights led to Haffajee’s second decision to withdraw the image. This decision seems to relate more explicitly to a different notion of ‘the common good’ – regardless of Section 16 of the Constitution guaranteeing Freedom of Expression. This begs the question of who or what institution is responsible for establishing ‘the common good’ and then for upholding it. In South Africa, both the news media and the government see themselves in both roles, but each rationalises them in different ways. The media legitimise their role through the notion of ‘the public interest’ and the government through its notion of ‘the national interest’ (Wasserman and De Beer, 2005). These discourses thus represent typical South African expressions of the contestation between the news media and the state (Steenveld, 2009) in their bid to represent the interests of citizens. But I argue that underpinning both sets of discourses (decision-making) are debates about culture, identity, belonging and solidarity, which are undercurrents that inform contemporary politics in South Africa. In view of this, I locate these problems in Mamdani’s (2001) arguments about the colonial creation of ‘citizens’ and ‘subjects’ which plague post-colonial life in South Africa, as well as Calhoun’s (2003) and Brubaker’s (2003) arguments about the politics of ethnicity. What is also problematic in this particular instance is that ‘the offence’ regarded a public figure (the State President); ‘Western’ ethics would preclude ethical considerations applying to this category of person, making this an ‘easy ethical decision’. I conclude by suggesting that perhaps Fraser’s (2001) argument about seeing ethnic politics as related to status, and thus as a justice claim, rather than an ethical claim, as a possible way forward.

This article is divided into five parts. The first details the discourses which provoked the Editor’s decision-making dilemmas, her responses and the broader political context within which the incident has to be seen. The second looks at her first decision from the perspective of ‘legal theorising’; the third considers her second decision from the perspective of issues relating to identity and belonging which inform the contestation between ‘the national interest’ and ‘the public interest’. In the fourth part, I examine debates about cultural politics which underpin the dilemma faced by the editor, and in the final section, I offer a way of regarding ethnic politics, not as claims for recognition but as claims for justice. This article is based on two sets of on-line and off-line data: first, the two published rationales of the Editor for publishing and then retracting the image and, second, public responses to both her decisions.

The Spear: The ethics and politics of media imagery

Following the publication of The Spear, the President launched a High Court application to have the painting removed from the Goodman Gallery as it impugned his dignity. South African Minister of Education of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande, and ANC secretary general, Gwede Mantashe, called for a boycott of City Press (Etheridge, 2012). Tweeters called on the public to support City Press. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) organised a march on the art gallery. The South African Communist Party (SACP) called the painting ‘sadistic’, noting that ‘Freedom of expression has never meant freedom to insult and harm the dignity of another person’ (Mail & Guardian, 21 May 2012). The Publications Board rated the painting N16 –which means not to be viewed by children under the age of 16 years. The Black Management Forum viewed the painting as ‘… an attack on the culture of the majority, the black people of South Africa. It cannot go unchallenged’. They also saw the painting as a ‘“crude attempt” to reinforce the “hostility harboured by a small number of South Africans towards our democratic dispensation and towards members of the national leadership”’ (City Press, 21 May 2012). An art critic saw it as a typical racist colonialist representation of the Black male colonial subject (Schutte, 2012). The Nazareth Baptist church called for the stoning of the painter. Numerous articles and blogs were written either in defence of the painting and its photographic publication in City Press on the grounds of freedom of expression, or against the painting and its public reproduction on the grounds that they impugned the dignity of South Africa’s ‘first citizen’. Through all this, the Editor-in-Chief, Ferial Haffajee, maintained the paper’s right to publish the photograph. In the column headlined ‘The spear of the nation stays up’, she explained her position (City Press, 18 May 2012):

A group wanted the image of an ‘exposed’ president to lead our arts section … but too many people in our office objected on grounds that ranged from us being a family paper, to concerns about dignity and cultural values. We put the image inside and ran a funny version on page 1, its indignity covered by a price tag … In the past week – and in the one to come – we will hear (sic) again this clash of free expression and dignity … (Haffajee, 2012b)

The Editor summed up both the public objections to, and support for, the painting which the publication of its photograph provoked: discourses of race and culture (sexuality) for the former; and freedom of expression – both of the media and artistic, as guaranteed by Section 16 (1) of the Constitution (Constitution of South Africa: 19) – for the latter.

But 10 days later, following increased social and political objections to the publication of the photograph on the newspaper’s website, she ‘caved in’. ‘The spear is down – out of care and fear’ was the City Press (28 May 2012) headline to the column in which she explained her new position (Haffajee, 2012a). Her decision to take the photograph off the newspaper’s website provoked further online responses either praising her ‘sensitivity’ or accusing her of buckling to threats. Journalists were divided on the issue (http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/editors-mull-haffajee-decision-on-spear-1.1307049#.VGtr5E1d6Uk). And months later, presenting the University of Cape Town annual TB Davie lecture on academic and human freedoms, Haffajee admitted, ‘I would not take down that image today, knowing what I do now’ (Etheridge, 2012).

‘The Spear’ debacle points to the tension between Freedom of Expression and the Right to Dignity. In South Africa, neither right is constitutionally privileged (Suttner, 1990: 384; Van der Westhuizen, 1994: 273). As a result, similar debates provoked the 1999/2000 South African Human Rights Commission’s Inquiry into Racism in the Media (Steenveld, 2007, 2009) and, more recently, the Sunday Times (7 September 2008) publication of Zapiro’s cartoon of the ‘Rape of Lady Justice’ (Hammett, 2010: 88, 90; (http://www.pepperexpress.co.za/2009/10/06/zapiro-my-life-as-a-political-cartoonist). The similarity between Zapiro’s cartoons and Brett Murray’s painting is that they are both satirical forms of expression which are explicitly critical commentaries on contemporary South African politics – Murray’s recent artwork being seen as a revisiting of 1980s ‘protest art’ (http://www.citypress.co.za/lifestyle/white-noise-20120511/ /; see also Koelble and Robins, 2007).

What is also significant is the timing of these ‘debacles’. Many have now argued that the timing was politically ‘motivated’. The first ² public outcry was to ensure Zuma’s election as President of the ANC at the ANC’s national conference at Polokwane in 2007, thereby unseating his rival, the then unpopular Thabo Mbeki. The second outcry was to facilitate his election as President of South Africa in 2008. And the third, and most recent, furore was to show him as a victim of a racist media, thereby making him a more sympathetic candidate for his re-election as president of the ANC at its national conference in Mangaung (2012). The import of this is that it would entail his election as President of the country for a second term in the 2014 general elections (Bruce, 2012; De Waal, 2012; Lekota, 2012; Munusamy, 2013). By taking ‘The Spear’ to the streets, and once again presenting the President as a ‘victim’ of the abuse of Freedom of Expression and his Right to Dignity, it is claimed that his supporters attempted to stem his fading support by mobilising people around particularistic ethnic claims harking back to the ‘100% Zulu boy’ ³ which framed the discourse during his rape trial (Lekota, 2012; Munusamy, 2013). Another view is that The Spear gave the ANC an opportunity to attack City Press for spearheading the investigations into what has become known as Mdluligate (De Waal, 2012).

Decision 1: Privileging freedom of expression over the right to dignity

‘The Law’ is a set of social rules defining what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, or what can or cannot be allowed. In countries, such as South Africa, that have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights, these documents provide the ultimate parameters for how ‘the law’ should be interpreted. But legal theorists recognise that ‘the law’ is a social construct and as such identify at least three different positions: legal positivism, which is the hegemonic basis of most legal systems; legal realism which critiqued it in the 1920s and 1930s and from which developed a ‘rights-based’ approach to the law, in which ‘rights trump positive law because only rights can claim transcendent law-making authority’ (Hunt, 1993: 52); and, more recently (the 1970s), the development of Critical Legal Studies which facilitated the development of Critical Race Theory and Feminist Legal theory (http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/critical_legal_theory), both of which are critiques of rights-based law. ⁴ Although South African law is clearly ‘rights-based’, I suggest that it is not uninformed by Critical Legal Studies and Critical Race Theory (see Marcus, 1992, 1994; Suttner, 1990; Van der Westhuizen, 1994). Critical Legal Studies theorists, for example, argue that ‘there is no politically neutral, coherent way to talk about law because law’s internal logic depends on fundamentally contradictory concepts and principles’ (Minda, 1995: 110–111) such as the conflict between individual and group, self and other, public and private, subjective and objective. They challenge the objectivity of legal positivism, arguing that ‘the practices of legal institutions work to buttress and support a pervasive system of oppressive, inegalitarian, relations’. ⁵ Critical Race theorists share this general view, arguing that ‘in a world structured by racial inequality, colour-blind law is not neutral, but privileges the unspoken values and experiences of the white subject’ (Steenveld, 2007: 328).

Notwithstanding this, South African constitutional lawyer Johan Van der Westhuizen (1994) argues that freedom of expression is ‘one of the most basic human rights’ and is ‘central to the concept and ideal of democracy’ (pp. 267; 269). Acknowledging that freedom of expression may mean little to those without social and economic rights, he argues it is ‘an indispensable tool in pointing out the illnesses and injustices of a society to the world and in campaigning for better education, housing and health policies’ (Van der Westhuizen, 1994: 270). But, regarding freedom of speech’s ‘truth-seeking’ or the ‘market place of ideas’ value, Suttner (1990) argues that free speech should not have a transcendental value, but should be examined and evaluated in its historical context (p. 372; Cotler, 1992: 124). Despite this, when considering the limitations of freedom of expression, Van der Westhuizen (1994) warns that although the limitation of expression must ‘be narrowly interpreted’ (p. 272), he also notes that ‘speech that harms the dignity of particular groups of people might justify the curtailment of such speech’ (Steenveld, 2007: 345; see also Barnes, 1995: 159; Suttner, 1990: 384). Mindful of the Preamble to South Africa’s Constitution, he writes,

The constitutional protection and limitation of freedom of expression has to be interpreted within the context of appreciating where our society comes from and where we want it to go. Today we strive for equality and freedom, openness, reconciliation, and tolerance, and aim to become a truly exemplary democracy in Africa and the world. In doing so we are conscious of a history of denial of these values, of race discrimination, sexism, and obsession with secrecy in the face of perceived onslaughts and state censorship aimed not only at preserving white minority rule, but also at enforcing the morality of a small group by the instrument of the law. (Van der Westhuizen, 1994: 273)

Thus, although Freedom of Expression is a powerful discourse within the South African Constitutional framework, it is not regarded in the same way as the First Amendment is in the United States. No one right is superior to others. Rather, the view is that ‘[T]he overall object is to protect and promote human rights as a whole, not only some chosen rights and freedoms preferred by a particular class or group of people’ (Gutto, 1996: 12).

The Editor’s first decision to publish the image of The Spear, based on her engagement with her newsroom staff, as noted above, indicates that her commitment to Freedom of Expression is grounded in her understanding of the role of cultural politics in the country:

Our Constitution explicitly protects artistic expression as a subset of free expression, to which its detractors will respond as they have all week: they draw the line at art that impugns presidential dignity. But I’ve learnt that the commitment to clauses like free expression (be it in art or journalism) … is always going to be tested by art that pushes boundaries and journalism that upsets holy cows, which is why our clever founders enshrined the right in our Constitution. (Haffajee, 2012b)

Her privileging of Freedom of Expression is clear in her description of those who opposed this position:

Inevitably, race will be drawn into it: only a black president would be depicted like this, the race brigade will drone. Inevitably, sexuality will be drawn into it: it is the stereotype of the black man and the uncontrollable appetite, they will wail. (Haffajee, 2012b)

Who is ‘the race brigade’? The word ‘drone’ suggests an ongoing discourse that bores its listeners and drowns out other views. They don’t make valid arguments, but ‘wail’: a word suggesting an ‘emotional’, rather than ‘rational’ response.

Haffajee’s response is not necessarily invalid. She is fully aware of the place of cultural or identity politics in South Africa:

Ours is a sexually aware, satirically sussed and progressive country. At the same time, we are a traditional society with a president who is most well-known for his many marriages.

Our identity is not as simple as the cultural chauvinists and dignity dogmatists like to make out … I’m tired of the people who desire to kill ideas of which they do not approve. Besides, our morality and good practice is selective. (Haffajee, 2012b)

And in view of this, she makes a political judgement based on the critical role that the media can play in facilitating public discussion about ‘cultural politics’:

But mostly, I will not have my colleagues take down that image because the march away from progressive politics to patriarchal conservatism is everywhere. It is there in the Traditional Courts Bill, which seeks to return rural women to servitude; it is there in a governing party MP, who seeks to strip gay people of their right to love; it is there in the draft Protection of State Information Act, which seeks to pull a securocrat’s dragnet over the free flow of news and information. It is there in the march of polygamy; there in the push-back on quotas for women politicians and there in the people who want art pulled down because they do not like its message. (Haffajee, 2012b)

Given the timing of the incident discussed above, it is not insignificant that the main people or organisations who challenged the publication of the image were the ANC, its alliance partners (Cosatu and the SACP) and Black professional organisations like the Black Management Forum. ⁶ So, a reasonable answer to my question ‘who is “the race brigade?”’ could be

powerful political classes who were using the arguments of the Right to Dignity as tropes for ‘race’, ‘culture’ and ‘identity’ both to rally their supporters, and legitimise their attack on a popular newspaper, with its first woman editor who sought to challenge their authority/rule.

In this regard, it is also worth asking, Are they acting, in Mamdani’s (2001) terms, as ‘citizens’ or ‘subjects’?

Given her analysis of the situation, the Editor took a ‘middle path’ and published the image on an inside page, with ‘its indignity covered by a price tag’ (Haffajee, 2012b). However, she concluded on a firm note:

To ask us now, as the ANC has done, to take down an image from our website is to ask us to participate in an act of censorship. As journalists worth our salt, we can’t. (Haffajee, 2012b)

However, 10 days later she did. Haffajee is a ‘journalist worth her salt’, so her reasons for changing her decision are important. I will consider these in the next section.

Decision 2: The ‘national’ or ‘public’ interest?

The Spear is down. Out of care and as an olive branch to play a small role in helping turn around a tough moment. (Haffajee, 2012a)

Despite framing her reason for taking down the image in terms that might, in South African discourse, be associated with ‘the national interest’, Haffajee nevertheless expounds her views in terms of her understanding of the role of the media in a democratic society: ‘a bridge across divides, a forum for debate’, rather than an ‘opposition’. She also identifies its important ‘watch-dog’ role: ‘the continued investigation into Lieutenant General Richard Mdluli, unemployment and the infrastructure budget’. In sum, she acknowledges both the media’s facilitative and critical roles (Christians et al., 2009):

We are robust and independent, yes, but divisive and deaf, no.

This week society began the path of setting its mores on how we treat presidents in art and journalism; what is acceptable and what is not. I hope we will reach these conclusions decently in debates, colloquiums and plenaries rather than setting them in blood or angry red paint or in orange flames snaking up from burning pages. (Haffajee, 2012a)

In framing her arguments in these terms, she accentuates the ‘public interest’ role that the media play in society, foregrounding their role in helping to constitute a public sphere. Her words echo the Habermasian ideal that the media enable the creation of a space in which citizens can, through ‘rational critical debate’, establish ‘solidarity among strangers’ (Garnham, 2007). However, Garnham (2007) reminds us that despite shifts in Habermas’ views about how ‘solidarity among strangers’ can be attained, his main political project is ‘to see the public sphere as a … perspective from which to think about the problem of democracy in the modern world’ (p. 203). His one concern is that the major challenge in the current development of modernity is the rise of particularist claims such as religion. ⁷ In South Africa, this ‘politics of difference’ is in evidence through the renewed rise of ‘ethnic politics’. Pointing to this aspect of Habermas’ politics, Garnham (2007) writes,

it is fruitful to note Habermas’ serious engagement with the revival of religion as a political force and his attempt to separate out the dogmatic, anti-democratic aspects of religion, which are not open to reasoned argument, from those that express legitimate life-world based ethical claims which have not yet found a more adequate, reasonable and secular form of expression. (p. 202, author’s emphasis)

Habermas’ concern is with how legitimate life-world claims can be expressed in a democracy – which is similar to that of Gole’s (2002) and Brubaker’s (2003) noted below. However, I raise this now to demonstrate that although Haffajee frames her decision to withdraw the image of The Spear ‘in the national interest’, her arguments in fact point to her deep attachment to journalistic discourses about the role of the media which are seen as acting on behalf of the citizens, against the government. The media thus legitimise their status in terms of representing ‘the public interest’, whereas the government sees its role as serving ‘the national interest’ (Wasserman and De Beer, 2005). This contestation between the two institutions has a long history in South Africa (Goedgedacht Forum, 2002; McKaiser, 2012; Ramalainetalkpoliticalanalysis, 2012).

Because of the histories of the ethnic presses in South Africa (see Steenveld, 2009), the ‘white press’ was castigated for serving the ‘national interest’ of the then apartheid government (Switzer, 1995). But as Netshitenzhe observers, the Sowetan’s (a leading Black daily) mission during apartheid was ‘nation-building’ (Goedgedacht Forum, 2002). This seemingly contradictory strategy can be understood in terms of Mamdani’s (2001) explanation of how colonial rule created political and institutional structures which shaped both colonial and post-colonial identities: ‘citizens’ and ‘subjects’ (p. 651). A key institution of the state was ‘the law’ through which it enforced the practices of institutions (such as the media) which created and reproduced two kinds of identities: one political and the other cultural (Mamdani, 2001: 652). In this way, the distinction between ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ was established (Mamdani, 2001: 654):

Ethnicities were governed through customary laws. While civil law spoke the language of rights, customary law spoke the language of tradition, of authenticity. These were different languages with different effects, even opposite effects. The language of rights bounded law. It claimed to set limits to power. For civic power was to be exercised within the rule of law, and had to observe the sanctity of the domain of rights. The language of custom, in contrast, did not circumscribe power, for custom was enforced. The language of custom enabled power instead of checking it by drawing boundaries around it. In such an arrangement, no rule of law was possible.

A consequence of this, writes Mamdani (2001), was that

[N]ationalism was a struggle of natives to be recognized as a transethnic identity, as a race, as ‘Africans’, and thus – as a race – to gain admission to the world of rights, to civil society, which was a short form for civilized society. (p. 654)

From this perspective, it is possible to see the significance of the Sowetan’s ‘nation-building’ project: building Black identities into citizens governed by civil law, rather than subjects of customary law.

So, the contestations between the government and the media for the legitimacy of representing ‘the people’ have to be understood historically. Each institution has a complex relation to both the colonial and post-colonial state, and neither has an absolute prerogative for representing the interests of ‘the people’. In this case, although Haffajee appeared to use the language of ‘the national interest’, she in fact argued her withdrawal in terms that derive from the Habermasian ideal of the media serving the public interest: to build a space where ‘solidarity among strangers’ can be facilitated. Fellow editor, Peter Bruce (2012) of Business Day agreed with her that the photograph should come down ‘in the national interest’. Others disagreed, seeing it as a blow for free speech and the independence of the media, while South African newspapers like New Age, Citizen and Sowetan were equivocal (McKaiser, 2012; SAPA, 2012).

The politics of cultural belonging

Reflecting on her decision to take down the image, the Editor wrote,

The other lesson in all of this is that our common national dignity is still paper-thin; that our mutual understanding across cultures and races is still a work in progress and that pain is still deep. We have not yet defined a Mzansi way of maintaining a leader’s dignity while exercising a robust free speech or reached an understanding that a leader embodies the nation, no matter what we may think of him or her. Neither does it seem our leaders know that dignity and respect are earned qualities too. (Haffajee, 2012a)

In this section, I probe a range of discourses associated with identity, recognition, belonging, cosmopolitanism and ultimately social justice – all of which surfaced in some form in the debates about whether the photograph of The Spear should have been published or not. I draw on the work of Craig Calhoun (2003) and Rogers Brubaker (2003) in which they probe the meanings and politics of ‘belonging’ central to contemporary discourses which frame ‘cosmopolitanism’ as liberal and an identity we moderns ought to have, in contrast to ‘illiberal local’ attachments to particular groups or cultures (Calhoun, 2003: 532). This discourse is evident, for example, in Haffajee’s (2012b) reference to ‘the march from progressive politics to patriarchal conservatism’ and in McKaiser’s (2012) ‘Open Letter’ to her challenging her decision to take down the photograph of The Spear. He (McKaiser, 2012) suggests her position is reminiscent of the ‘anthropology of low expectations’ of apartheid politics:

The modern version of ‘Don’t teach them maths because they won’t get it’ seems to be ‘Don’t demand of them what you would demand of a cosmopolitan, progressive, educated white person – tolerance of artistic freedom – because ‘they’ won’t get it!’

Here, we see the ‘chain of signification’ of ‘cosmopolitan’ associated with education, ‘whiteness’ and tolerance of artistic freedom, in contrast to ‘blackness’ with their opposites. Drawing on Mamdani (2001), it is possible to see this as another aspect of the colonial legacy of the constructions of ‘citizen’ and ‘subject’.

Calhoun (2003) probes the political complexity of ethnic and cultural identities in relation to political struggle and ‘cosmopolitanism’. First, he argues that ‘belonging’ to a social group is a fundamental human trait – making us essentially social beings: ‘… it is impossible not to belong to social groups, relations, or culture’ (Calhoun, 2003: 536). But he also argues that ‘groups should not be presumed to be sharply bounded or internally homogenous’ (Calhoun, 2003: 562; 2003: 547). In other words, culture is non-essentialist and open to variability and change: it is constitutive of identity or a sense of belonging to a group. Although he argues that ethnic identity could be considered ‘a commonality of understanding, access to the world, and mode of action that facilitates the construction of social relationships and provides common rhetoric even to competition and quarrels’ (Calhoun, 2003: 560), he also suggests that it may be more helpful to think that ‘people participate to varying degrees in ethnicity’, rather than seeing them as members of ethnic groups (Calhoun, 2003: 560). He argues that, ironically, ‘challenges to the reproduction of cultural patterns engender efforts to defend them that may contribute to making them sharper identities’ (Calhoun, 2003: 561–562). This was evident in some public responses to what was deemed an insult not only to the president but also to the culture some citizens/subjects identified with:

Poet and writer Mongane Wally Serote said the painting was ‘no different to labelling black people kaffirs’. ‘Blacks feel humiliated and spat on by their white counterparts in situations like this’ …

‘In Zulu culture you respect adults’, said Professor Nhlanhla Mathonsi, head of the school of Zulu Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. It is not earned – it is predetermined. (Bauer, 2012)

What is significant in these comments is that the public personage (the President) is seen as representative of the group. An iconic anti-apartheid struggle slogan was ‘an injury to one is an injury to all’. ⁸ So, whereas in ‘Western’/‘northern’ media ethics, public figures would be fair game, in this context they are seen differently by ‘citizens’ and ‘subjects’. The culture under attack was seen as both ‘ethnic’ and ‘racial’, which is not surprising given the slippages in South African usage of the terms because of the struggle of subjects to become citizens.

The second argument Calhoun makes is that seeing cosmopolitanism and local identifications as polar opposites is an effect of not seeing them as mutually constituted by the global capitalist economic system. This failure, he argues ‘encourages a substitution of ethics for politics, accounts of what is good or bad in individual action for how collective struggles might change social structure or institutions’ (Calhoun, 2003: 532). He suggests that ‘The idea of individuals abstract enough to be able to choose all their ‘identifications’ is deeply misleading’ (Calhoun, 2003: 536). He thus argues against a premise of individualism evident in many understandings of cosmopolitanism which suggest that one can eschew local attachments (to culture, ethnicity or nation) for a ‘global’ or ‘cosmopolitan’ identity (Calhoun, 2003: 532, 535). Instead, he argues,

cosmopolitan liberals often fail to recognize the social conditions of their own discourse, presenting it as a freedom from social belonging rather than a special sort of belonging, a view from nowhere or everywhere rather than from particular social spaces. The view of cosmopolitan elites expresses privilege; they are not neutral apprehensions of the whole. (Calhoun, 2003: 532)

In short, he proposes that cosmopolitan theories ‘fail to make sense of the world as it is and the next steps people might take to make both it and their lives better’ (Calhoun, 2003: 532). Instead, they ‘offer an abstract normative structure which, however much occasioned by real-world social change, can only have the standing of “abstract ought,” with all the potential tyranny over immanent projects of social improvement that implies’ (Calhoun, 2003: 532).

And finally, he argues that it is precisely because groups are socially marginalised that they engage in a politics of belonging and solidarity in order to mount a political challenge to the structures and institutions which marginalise them (Calhoun, 2003: 532, 545, 560; also Hall, 2000: 149). The potency of discourses of ethnicity and culture was evident in how easy it was for leaders of the tripartite alliance (ANC, Communist Party and Cosatu) to rally their members in defence of ‘their president’ (as in Zuma’s rape trial). The posters carried by supporters at various rallies are indicative of their sense of ‘group identification’ or ‘allegiance’: ‘Zuma was not voted into power by newspaper picture or articles. He was voted in by the majority of South Africans’; ⁹ ‘Hands off our president, we are hurt’; ¹⁰ ‘Naked or not, Zuma for second term’. ¹¹

While Brubaker (2003) is largely in agreement with Calhoun, his main concern is that groups, such as ethnic ones, are often conceived as ‘real, substantial things-in-the-world’ (p. 554), rather than as a ‘contextually fluctuating conceptual variable’ (p. 555). This reification, he argues, makes possible ‘the practice of politicized ethnicity’ – by which he means the way in which the discourses of ethnicity can be appropriated in the service of opportunistic politics (Brubaker, 2003: 554). This view of ethnicity is evident in many of the responses to The Spear – hence the ‘ease’, noted above, with which members of the ANC leadership could draw on such discourses to rally support for Zuma. In discussing the challenges in considering the political claims made in the name of ‘diversity’, Brubaker (n.d.) writes,

In any particular context, some ways of representing diversity and framing claims are going to be more legitimate than others. This creates incentives to talk about diversity in particular ways … The general point is that how diverse populations are characterized depends on what claims are recognized as legitimate and effective in particular discursive and policy environments – and these change over time and vary across contexts.

Calhoun is not unmindful of the dangers of ‘groupism’, but he is concerned that Brubaker (2003) underestimates the significance of culture (as a system of ideas and practices) in the constitution of ethnic identities which provide ‘a commonality of understanding, access to the world, and a mode of action that facilitates the construction of social relationships and provides a common rhetoric even to competition and quarrels’ (p. 560). He argues,

The privileged feel free as individuals precisely because their habituses are well attuned to the dominant socio-cultural organization. But the less privileged experience a mismatch between their embodied capacities to generate action and some of the fields in which they are forced to act – notably those of economy and state. (Brubaker, 2003: 560)

Using the concept of ‘habitus’ provides an argument about why it is easier for middle-class people like academics and journalists to take up the positions of ‘universal’ and ‘cosmopolitan’. It also gives us an insight into why there are attempts to find a universal set of journalism ethics (Hanitzsch, 2007), despite a recognition that as a modernist practice it is context-bound (Berkowitz and Eko, 2007: 793). In sum, Calhoun (2003) points to the critical importance of ethnicity in constituting a sense of belonging and the variable ways in which it can be deployed to defend perceived injustices.

While this seems a persuasive argument for those of us working in deeply divided societies in which class often coincides with ‘race’ or ‘ethnicity’, albeit with Brubaker’s caveat about the politicisation of ethnicity, it does not offer a ‘solution’ to Habermas’ concern with how to establish ‘solidarity among strangers’ and the problem of democratic politics in modernity. In the last section, I attempt to reconcile ‘identity politics’ with Habermas’ concerns with universal social justice, by referring to Fraser’s (2001) work on ‘recognition without ethics’.

Recognition without ethics

The importance of social solidarity that culture and ethnicity facilitate, Calhoun (2003) argues, is that it enables the marginalised to ‘take the next step’ in organising to fight for the redress of their social and economic circumstances (p. 532). In other words, he explicitly links ‘the politics of difference’ to ‘the politics of equality’ (Fraser, 2001: 21). Fraser (2001) shares this view: ‘Justice today requires both redistribution and recognition: neither is sufficient’ (p. 22). Proponents of redistribution see it as a moral right – the basis of fairness and equal treatment for all, whereas proponents of recognition see ethics as promoting qualitative conditions that constitute ‘the good life’. But as Fraser (2001) notes,

It is now standard practice in moral philosophy to distinguish questions of justice from questions of the good life. Construing the first as a matter of ‘the right’, and the second as a matter of ‘the good’, most philosophers align distributive justice with Kantian Moralitat (morality) and recognition with Hegelian Sittlichkeit (ethics). (p. 22)

The demands for justice are seen as universally binding, whereas the claims for the recognition of difference are seen as referring to particular cultures and practices. The former position is taken by deontologists and the latter by Communitarians (see Rao, 2010). Believing that progressive politics today requires both justice and recognition, Fraser attempts to find a philosophical way of combining both: namely, seeing recognition of difference not as an ethical claim vis-à-vis ‘the good’, but as a justice claim. She argues against ‘the identity model of recognition’ for a number of reasons: It views identity as individualised and psychological rather than social and dynamic; it posits group identity as the object of recognition, which often has an essentialist basis to which all members of the group have to conform; it reifies culture. In short, it ‘lends itself all too easily to repressive forms of communitarianism’ (Fraser, 2001: 24). Instead, she proposes a ‘status model of recognition’ in which what is recognised is not the group, ‘but rather the status of group members as full partners in social interaction’ (Fraser, 2001: 24). In other words, she locates the approach within a framework of democratic citizenship. She argues that to view recognition in this way ‘is to examine institutionalized patterns of cultural value for their effects on the relative standing of social actors’ (Fraser, 2001: 24). From this perspective, recognition is not a matter of self-realisation, but of justice, because

it’s unjust that some individuals and groups are denied the status of full partners in social interaction simply because of institutionalised patterns of cultural value in whose construction they have not equally participated and which disparage their distinctive characteristics … (Fraser, 2001: 24)

The criteria for judging whether claims for recognition are valid or not thus depend on the claimant showing that ‘current arrangements prevent them from participating on a par with others in social life’ (Fraser, 2001: 32). In short, the recognition sought should enable ‘participatory parity’. This is her way of obviating the danger of ‘politicised ethnicity’ noted by Brubaker (2003) and other critics of communitarianism (Calhoun, 2003; Fourie, 2010; Tomaselli, 2009). On this basis, it is arguable that particular recurring media representations of Black people contribute to institutional racism, which continues to inhibit the parity of participation of Black people in many spheres of social and economic life. ¹² On this view, calls for changes to media reporting practice are a justice claim, rather than an ethical one. On the other hand, Fraser (2001) also argues that by ‘aligning recognition with justice instead of the good life, one avoids the view that everyone has an equal right to social esteem’ (p. 28). Here, she points to the distinction between esteem and respect: Respect is owed to all on the basis of a common humanity, whereas esteem is based on our valuation of particular traits (Fraser, 2001: 39). In relation to The Spear, calls for Zuma to be ‘esteemed’ are not valid on the basis of allegations of rape against him and his involvement in corruption (see McKaiser, 2012).

One could thus see Fraser’s argument as a way to reframe journalism ethics – not based either on deontological or communitarian ethics – but a combination of the concerns of each, rooted in a consideration of what is ‘just’ for each participant in a highly diverse and unequal democracy. From this perspective, the debates about the publication of the photograph should not centre on ‘African’ culture and practices, but on questions of how media representations facilitate or hinder social equality and the ‘parity of participation’ in social life. In Tomaselli’s (2009) words, ‘ethics without justice is blind, and justice without equity is empty’ (p. 7).

Conclusion

The City Press Editor’s decisions to publish an image of The Spear and then withdraw it provided an opportunity for discussing the ethical and political issues that underlie such decision-making in South Africa and possibly other African post-colonial states. Notwithstanding the Constitutional bases for such decision-making, I argue that as ‘the law’ is a social construction (Mautner, 2011: 841) it needs to be understood contextually. Of critical importance is the historical construction of ‘citizens’ and ‘(ethnic) subjects’ which not only constructed different social identities but also prescribed their relation to ‘the law’ and other social institutions. A legacy of these social relations in South Africa is the continued contestation over the politics of cultural identity, belonging, solidarity and the meanings of citizenship. The Editor confronted this in the public outcry regarding her publishing decisions. The dilemma she faced was how to reconcile Habermas’ modernist political project of building a democratic world which embraces solidarity among strangers, in a post-colonial democracy in which ethnicity, often linked to party-political identification, is the basis of ‘solidarity’. Despite being mindful of the ‘politicisation of ethnicity’, she opted for an ‘ethics of care’, ¹³ rather than confrontation. The examination of Fraser’s strategy of seeing ‘identity politics’ as a politics of justice, rather than a politics of recognition, provides a way of re-thinking democratic politics in a socially unequal society. This approach also extends the discussion about journalism ethics as it incorporates the values and beliefs of particular life-worlds into a democratic system based on ‘participatory parity’, thereby reconciling the quest for justice with social difference.