SA Media’s Bout of Measles

Right through the week I have been surfing the net, seeking South African media's response to l'affaire Cronje. In the end, the somewhat vicarious search for racism and jingoism, iced over with the born again Christian spirit's capacity to forgive, was well rewarded. But, when Cronje confessed, the tenor changed.

For all the spirited defense of Hansie Cronje, the Captain Courageous of the South African team, the media there too fell into the trap. The trap of a perverse nationalism that defeats reason, even the avowed objectivity of the media. Sample this: a headline before Cronje's confession and after. "Its NOT our Hansie" in the Sunday. And this one after the confession: "Hansie: A Nation betrayed" in The Star. The contrast could not be more apparent in advertisements for weight loss programmes or hair weaving.

What is it that makes media around the globe so myopic and nationalistic? And mind you, South African media is merely the latest to come under the strobe light. Remember when Indian Airlines flight was hijacked to Kandahar. Television reports as well as print media insisted that a Nepali trader of Pashmina shawls, as much the victim as any other on the flight, was a conspirator of the hijackers.

Most magazines in India have panned the South African media's fervent support for Hansie Cronje. Even the running down of the Indian police, the taunts of cocky radio hosts who betted on Cronje's impending windfall, when he sues the Indian police etc.

But beyond all these imperfections of a grim looking Rhema Chrisitian faithful who succumbed to the smile Mammon, is a larger question. Beyond cricket, (Is there actually such a question on the sub continent?) and beyond the current betting scandal. Can the media, as a institution, offer any kind of quarantine from a national epidemic of jingoism ? It, of course, is presumed to be part of its function as the watchdog of democracy.

It is an interesting thought. The internet, the defining mover and shaker of the twenty first century so far and for far so, is a world where passports and visas are obsolete. Communities are being built on common inclinations and interests rather than language and nationality. In fact, the only place where true globalisation is happening, once the word's meaning is torn away from its economic crib. A truly global village for the citizens of the world.

There have been several citizens of the world in history, who never felt at home anywhere. That’s because they never had an address in the webworld. Einstein had once wryly remarked that if his theory of relativity was proved right the Germans would say he was German, the Swiss would say he was Swiss and the Americans would say he was American. But, he continued to clarify, if the opposite happened the Swiss would say he was German and the Germans would say he was American…. You know by now what the Americans would have said.

Einstein, a genius who drank deep of several countries had another quote about the issue of nationalism. "Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind." It is difficult to find too much of agreement on this issue.

Often institutions too reflect the weaknesses of individuals who are part of it. They also pay prices for individual weaknesses, like South African cricket and nation at the present moment. And yet, when society formed institutions the idea must have been to invest in it a longevity that would outlive weaknesses of those in temporary power.

South African cricket, and indeed world sports, will get over Cronje. It did get over Ben Johnson and Diego Maradona. But, can we hope for a sensitising of the media. As the conduit between the personal misery of these icons and the people who worship them, the media should be more circumspect. Of course, the guarantee that Delhi police will not sue them for defamation is not good enough reasons to run a partisan story. The media too should learn to refuse to bet on such certainties, however good the odds.