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Polity
Published: 11 Jul 2003
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| Matsepe-Casaburri: Opening of Free State Language & Broadcasting Content Summit (11/07/2003) | |
| Date: 11/07/2003 Source: Ministry of Communications Title: Matsepe-Casaburri: Opening of Free State Language & Broadcasting Content Summit ADDRESS BY THE MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS, DR IVY MATSEPE-CASABURRI, AT THE OPENING OF THE LANGUAGE AND BROADCASTING CONTENT PROVINCIAL SUMMIT, Kroonstad, 11 July 2003 Director of Ceremonies Premier Direko Members of National and Provincial Legislatures Distinguished Delegates Ladies and Gentlemen: Introductory Remarks We live in a country of many climates and many cultures, where the mountainous winter-rainfall regions of the west meet the rugged flatlands of the semi-desert hinterland, where the rivers of one region lead into the sea of a tropical landscape in another, where the skyline of the Lowveld meets the ridges and rises of the bushveld. But my aim here this morning is not to provide a lesson in geography. In opening this provincial language and broadcast content summit, which is the first of a series of summits that will be held throughout the country, rather I wish to say that in each region and between different areas, we are also a country where these different landscapes of many people and through migrations have given rise to different languages and of many forms of cultural expressions. It is through these languages and these varied cultural expressions that we should work together to forge our identity as a South African people and to build our African culture. The great scholar, Amilcar Cabral, in his important book, Return to the Source, tells us that: "Culture is an essential element of the history of a people. Culture is, perhaps, the product of this history just as the flower is the product of a plant. Culture plunges its roots into the physical reality of the environmental hummus in which it develops, and it reflects the organic nature of society, which may be more or less influenced by external factors. "Just as happens with the flower in a plant, in culture there lies the capacity (or the responsibility) for forming and fertilising the seedling which will assure the continuity of history, at the same time assuring the prospects for evolution and progress of society in question." The process of South Africa's people talking to one another in our own languages on a daily basis and at local and national forums discussing our lives and our future is what ought to make our country a great and prosperous one, assuring both continuity and change. A multiplicity of diverse and multilingual voices and debates within and even across languages ought to be what builds and deepens our democracy, what restores our dignity and what strengthens our participation in national and global affairs as a confident collective force to be reckoned with - especially in reaction to the politics of unilingualism and unilateralism. This is what we must imagine ourselves to be as a proud new South African nation. The telling of stories and the transmission of stories about our lives ought to be what we can see at any time on our televisions and hear on our radios or obtain in our bookshops or from the internet, for it is these stories that shape our definition of ourselves and our striving as a people, bound by a common sense of belonging and a common vision of nationhood. Yet apartheid and colonialism sought over more than three hundred years to destroy our cultures, ban our stories, to use our languages against us to divide us rather than unite us and to impose colonial and apartheid identities upon our people. The main characteristics of both apartheid language policies and of apartheid broadcasting and its fundamental objectives were intended to prop up and sustain the apartheid system. This was the world we inherited in 1994 but we have set about transforming this world to create a more egalitarian society, a truly non-racial, non-sexist and democratic country. Our Constitution and our Bill of Rights demand that we treat all our languages equally and assert that these languages are part of who we are and that we should be proud of ourselves. We need to work towards a South African reality where everyone is at home anywhere they go within the borders of our country, a world where at our courts we must be allowed to express ourselves and to be understood in our own languages, where we are able to participate in economic transactions such a simple cash withdrawals at auto bank machines which communicate in our languages and where when people are interviewed on television especially in the cases of great tragedies having befallen them or their loved one, they must be able to speak with dignity in the languages of their choice and not those imposed upon them by the interviewers. Internet access ought to be in our own languages. We need to embrace the new information and communications technologies that can revolutionise our lives and assist us in our endeavours to communicate through these new media in the languages of our cultures. We have done a great deal in the past nine years in using technology to create a reality where anyone in a village or a town will be able to access information about the history of that community through the push of a button and in the languages spoken within that community. We have it within our reach to utilise information and communication technology to minimize queues for access to basic government services and where we will be able to access these services at one point. We have already made progress so that our youth run community media projects and make use of development communications, especially community radio, to create national networks that help to bring all of our people together and to strengthen democracy. It is this context of transformation that we are hosting this provincial summit specifically to focus on the area of language and broadcast content that must feed into the national summit to be held later this year. We believe that government is ready to engage with South Africans at provincial and national level on their experience of the broadcasting system. We are here to hear if and how the broadcasting system is matching our people's needs in both the services it provides and the languages it uses. Government is aware that recognition of all South African languages in broadcasting can foster national unity, and create a real respect for all official languages and Government wants to meet the constitutional imperative of language diversity or multilingualism in practice through broadcast content and language. We are concerned that at the heart of broadcasting is language and if your language of choice or home language is not reflected in the broadcast service available to you, then broadcasting may not be serving you as it should and your community life may be diminished. Why the focus on language and content? Electronic media can give reality a voice, a face a character and history to those denied. It is an important tool in projecting who we are, and establishing relations amongst different South Africans. Electronic media establish a link, a bond leading to greater communication and understanding of each other's culture, language and backgrounds and possibly leads to new forms of integration. We tune in so as to be entertained, informed or educated. Content is the King in broadcasting. Everyone needs content that addresses itself to his or her particular situation, in a manner that is acceptable to each and every one. In South Africa today, where 15 million people are considered not functional in English, the questions we have to ask ourselves are: How does the broadcasting system reach these South Africans? What kind of content is given and is it appropriate? Are all South Africans provided with information that allows them to participate effectively in important developments? Is language used as a carrier, and if so, will language diversity unblock the restrictions to access to knowledge and skills, address low productivity and ineffective performance in the workplace, entrench participation by the public in the social and economic developments? Democratising and freeing the airwaves Ten years ago, the dawn of a new democratic dispensation in South Africa triggered a momentous transformation agenda that led not only to significant changes in the broadcasting landscape but also introduced new challenges in the face of rapid technological changes and globalisation. This new era spurred the country to embark on a rigorous process to liberalize the airwaves thus introducing and promoting diversity in the provision of broadcasting services in the country. For the very first time in the history of South Africa, through consultative and democratic processes, broadcasting policies, laws and regulations were formulated in order to regulate the broadcasting system, introduce new broadcasting players and place the regulation of the broadcasting industry into the hands of an independent broadcasting authority. In this way many previously disadvantaged communities not only gained access to multiple broadcasting service in their own languages but also owned and controlled their own radio stations at regional, local and community level. Ten years later, we need to assess if the system meets the needs of the majority of people in both content and language. Of importance to our discussions here today is that a Broadcasting Amendment Act signed in January 2003 also established regional language television services to focus on the marginalized indigenous languages. In the past ten years, we have seen 94 community radio broadcasting licences awarded and 10 commercial licences. The Multi- Media Unit of the Department of Communications instituted both infrastructure support and programme production support through the provision of 42 community radio stations to communities and 50 000 minutes of programmes produced to cover disability, children, women, HIV/AIDS and crime. The National Electronic Multimedia Institute of South Africa (Nemisa) established in 1998 was set up to offer all-round, integrated training in broadcasting and multimedia transformational needs. This contributes to the gender transformation of the sector, since more than 50% of its students are female, The development of digital technology necessitated the establishment of Digital Advisory Council to advise the Minister on technological issues in broadcasting. Local content and use of all our languages will be further enabled through the convergence of technologies. The Department of Communications is currently engaged in processes that will facilitate the integration of telecoms, IT and broadcasting technologies. Concluding remarks I have identified some of the changes that have taken place, contributing to what the broadcasting system looks like today, but major challenges remain for developing content that relates to us in languages that best express our cultural life experiences and for the realisation of a prosperous South Africa and a truly shared sense of nationhood. We must successfully navigate the technological challenges of convergence and digitisation to offer a better and more relevant service to all South Africans and also playa decisive role in the knowledge economy. Our task must be to ensure the reflection of South African content in the global village, as well as preserving our important national heritage and our culture and the dynamic development of our languages. Speaking about the importance of language in August 1999, President Mbeki made the point that: "It is when the borderline between one language and another is erased, when the social barriers between the speaker of one language and another are broken, that a bridge is built, connecting what were previously two separate sites to one big space for human interaction, and, out of this, a new world emerges and a new nation is born. I believe, therefore, it is your task as creative participants to shape our South African reality to ensure that we arrive at this common dream and actively seek to build this common nation." The striving for a better broadcasting system that reflects all our languages and local content is part of this necessary journey that takes us toward the common dream that the President has spoken about, the building of a common nation that will result in the progress of our society and in the flowering of our culture. I wish you well in your deliberations. I thank you. For further details please contact: Ms. Lisa Combrinck @ 012 427 8292, 082 821 4886, OR Mr. Jerry Majatladi @ 012 427 8017, 082 889 3381 Issued by the Ministry of Communications 11 July 2003 |
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