Page 189 - Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

Rainbow Nation: Actuality or Mirage?

From the above discussion one can see that the negotiations over the
public, mediated presence of religion in a culturally and religiously pluralistic
democracy such as South Africa are increasingly informed by appeal to the glob-
alizing discourse of rights. Yet some critics, such as South African scholar of
religion Ebrahim Moosa, are skeptical of the constitutional arrangements for
freedom of religion in the South African context (and one could extend the ar-
gument to other African states also) (Moosa 2001, 132–134). Moosa claims that
expectations of freedom are never realized because religion is reduced to the
status of “junior partner” with the state. He attributes the “¤ction of the sov-
ereignty of religion” to the framing of religious rights in binary terms (public/
private, secular/profane, belief/practice, etc.) which re®ect imported liberal and
modernist constitutional values rather than the consensus values of the ma-
jority community (ibid.).
Other analysts point to the precarious nature of both the rights to freedom
of religion and freedom of expression in the face of new strategies by state and
nonstate actors in many parts of the world, not least some European countries,
35
to curtail these freedoms. Moves to re-regulate the media in terms of access,
licensing, and censorship may be interpreted as a consequence of the loss of
control by states over religious pluralization and diversi¤cation, or as an effort
by politicians to diminish the in®uence of the religious sector. Some govern-
ments see media censorship as a more feasible option for co-opting or excluding
unpopular or subversive religious ideologies. In some cases this can be effected
by encouraging the market forces which are recon¤guring religious power rela-
tions across Africa. Keyan Tomaselli, who has written extensively on the politi-
cal economy of the South African media, has warned of the vulnerability of the
electronic and print media in South Africa’s public sphere in the face of global-
36
ization of capital, media, and markets. He has underscored the need to pursue
critical media education, and the adoption of civil charters such as The People’s
Communication Charter. The Windhoek Charter on Broadcasting 2001, among
other things, calls on states to transfer regulatory powers on the airwaves and
telecommunication structures to publicly constituted bodies under a three-tier
system composed of public service, commercial, and community operators. 37
An important landmark in this connection for South Africa is the Media De-
velopment and Diversity Agency Act of July 8, 2002, which provides for a statu-
torily recognized body, to be funded by government and the media industry, for
the development of community and independent media. 38
For religious broadcasting policy in particular, Baker argues that, in the age
of (post)modern technologies and ideas, “simple objectivity,” based on “du-
bious membership ¤gures,” is seriously challenged by the “emerging multi-
39
channel, multi-media environment” (Baker 2000, 228–229, 232). He rightly
considers that the “goal of impartiality will have to be addressed more in terms
of the satisfaction of the needs of the full spectrum of the South African audi-

178 Rosalind I. J. Hackett