Sleight+of+hand+by+Terry+Bell,+Business+Report

Business Report, Johannesburg, August 25, 2006
=Sleight of hand can only truly work when the audience is blind=


 * By Terry Bell**

Spin is a bane in every journalist's life. The term refers to the dishonest practice of disseminating partial truths, or distorting or confusing facts to create a desired impression.

Spin can also be used to obscure embarrassing incidents and statements: reality can be smothered beneath a blanket of verbiage, often heavily salted with jargon and knitted together by woolly logic.

Or else word games can be played. A typical example was given last week by public enterprises minister Alec Erwin. He denied that he had ever used the word sabotage in connection with the breakdown at the Koeberg nuclear power station. This was true - but a classic use of spin.

He said the bolt that damaged the Koeberg generator "did not get there by accident". In other words, a deliberate act caused the damage. But the definition of sabotage is: "Deliberate damage to productive capacity". So Erwin put a spin on the truth.

Flat denial of apparent facts unearthed by the media can also work by sowing enough confusion to lose the facts. And when spin doesn't work, there is a fall-back position: roll out conspiracy theories, and blame the media.

The media has certainly taken a lot of flak from Cosatu over the past week. All because of reported divisions within the trade union federation's leadership. Such differences are only to be expected, and serious differences of opinion - concerning mainly tactics - exist between the general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, and the president, Willie Madisha.

What has brought matters to a head is not only the proximity of the Cosatu congress, but also the controversy over support for ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma. There was also a well-sourced report that Vavi was being investigated by Madisha for the inappropriate use of his union credit card. These reports were met with public and unanimous denials by all concerned.

SA Communist Party (SACP) general secretary Blade Nzimande weighed in with the accusation that there was a conspiracy to undermine Vavi. By implication, the media was also to blame for refusing to accept this explanation. This was an attempt to get the media to reflect the impression of unity demanded by the form of organisation practised by Cosatu and the SACP.

Vavi and Madisha are SACP members, with Madisha sitting on the party's central committee and on its powerful politburo. As such, both are subject to the discipline of two professedly "democratic centralist" organisations.

In theory, this means there should be open and vigorous debate with the structures of the organisations, leading to majority decisions that must be adhered to by all. A similar tradition, inherited from the SACP during the years of exile, permeates much of the ANC.

However, critics within the union movement maintain that what exists has little to do with wider debate and democracy; that a bureaucratic distortion has developed. This has been referred to as "centralised democracy", in which a small leadership core debates, decides and dictates what the action or policy should be. This leads to a culture of blind loyalty, with top leaders tending to be regarded as icons by many followers rather than as mere representatives.

For the leadership, the appearance of unity becomes paramount and results in the sort of crude spin that is easy to dismiss in a parliamentary democracy with its relatively independent media. Because such a press exists, it tends to reflect reality, not accept statements predicated on a concept of unity.

Much of the reaction of Cosatu and the SACP to the recent disclosures indicates that their form of centralised organisation may be out of step with the political dispensation. Cosatu could have done better to obey the biblical injunction: "The truth shall set you free".

Many trade unionists, even at the most senior levels, admit that it is silly to maintain that there is unanimous support within Cosatu for the positions adopted in support or defence of Zuma.

And most informed trade unionists are aware that as president of Cosatu, Madisha is constitutionally obliged, as part of his regular duties, to monitor all expenditure by federation officials. All credit card use is regularly checked and Vavi is no exception.

When various factions gather, often at the popular venue of the Booysens Hotel in Johannesburg, to discuss their views, they could open the debates to a wider audience and acknowledge, rather than deny, the reality of differing opinions.

To persist with denials in the name of that first principle of trade unionism, worker unity, also seems dishonest. Because the essential corollary to that slogan is an instruction to the leadership: never lie to the workers.

From: [|**http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3408419&fSectionId=559&fSetId=662**]

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