Kettling: How the ANC is limiting media access to delegates

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Kettling. That’s what they call it — a police technique to protect a group of people from one another.

I was first “kettled” in the 1980s, in Leeds in the north of England. From the railway station to the forbidding Elland Road home of Leeds United FC, we as Arsenal fans were tightly escorted by a ring of yellow-jacketed police. You were not allowed to break away, regardless of stated intention.

I didn’t much care for it, being a bit of a libertarian when it comes to freedom of movement. “It for your own good, sir,” would be the reply. Or the politest version thereof.

It happened plenty of times on away-day travels with The Arsenal over the coming years. Hooligan violence was a chronic part of the culture of the game in those days, although less so now.

Then, in 1994, I came to South Africa to work for the ANC during the first democratic election. And, perhaps ironically, the next time I was kettled was here at Nasrec five years ago when, as a member of the media and commentariat ensemble, we were escorted under tight guard to and from the open sessions of the plenary.

And it’s the same this time. I didn’t care for it much previously and I care even less for it now.

Here the security chaps don’t say that it’s for our own good. In fact, they don’t say anything, because I think they don’t know why. They are just following orders.

Pule Mabe, the voluble ANC spokesperson, denies that the organisers are trying to keep the media from the delegates. But they are. The sad fact is that they’re ashamed of their delegates — or some of them. They don’t trust their own people any more — because it didn’t used to be like this. Up until Nasrec 2017, the media could happily mingle with delegates as well as the top knobs of the ANC.

But that was a different time, a different ANC.

Now it’s an insecure, deviant and largely uncontrollable beast. 

“No,” says Mabe. “You can’t speak to delegates. We can arrange for that. If you want to speak to a delegate from Limpopo, we will find you one and you can have an interview.”

This shows how little he understands — even after five years in the job — about what journalists want and how they work.

When one does break away from the kettle, one finds precious few that are here for the policy discussions. Many of the delegates are here as foot soldiers for some or other faction. Some seem to have only a precarious grasp of what their branch mandate is.

No wonder there is huge scope for both horse-trading of delegation’s votes, or the buying of them — something that Mabe declined the opportunity to deny several times at Sunday’s press briefing.

But back to the kettling process. The procession takes one into the plenary hall, which is enormous and, at first sight, breathtaking. Its scale may not be easily communicated on television.

There is a modest allocation of seats for the media, to the far left of the podium. But most journalists prefer to sit in the narrow corridor between the podium and the first row of delegates.

One can really feel the heat of the battle there, caught as one is between the “leadership” and the “followship” — a political no-man’s land.

The thrill of proximity to the battleground almost makes up for the discomfort of sitting on the floor. One can look up the nose of the president or quickly pivot and film the facial expression of a former president as he learns that his former wife has been defeated.

For politicos it’s the sporting equivalent of attending The Masters or the Ryder Cup, going to a game at the Bernabeu, or watching a Men’s Downhill ski race at Kitzbuhel. Only without the booze.

If politics is your thing,  an ANC conference is a bucket-list item. Which must come as a surprise to the majority of the South African public, for whom the ANC conference is probably a confounding or irksome thing, or at best a necessary evil.

Don’t worry. We’re in the same boat. We love it, and we hate it.

And back to that no-man’s land. There are two ways of responding to the noise, the anger, the shouting, the aggression, even the not-so-far-from-the-surface violence. One can be dismayed and enervated — my dear chaps, surely there’s a calmer, more reasonable way of resolving these things. Or one can recognize it for what it is; a reflection, or at least a representation, of the complex, noisy, rugged and, yes, often violent society that is South Africa.

Of course this begs a further question: is this really the true nature of the country? Does the ANC really reflect, let alone represent, “the nation”?

The answer is that there is no such thing as “the ANC”, just as there is no such thing as “the nation”. But that’s a topic for another time.

It is what it is. The good, the bad and the ugly.

And, if you can’t enjoy the pageantry of the process, wonderful singing an’ all, then you really don’t know how to live.