SABC cans 'I have a dream' ad

2007-04-26 22:41

Liesl Pretorius

Johannesburg - The SABC has refused to broadcast the Sowetan's Freedom Day campaign, based on "three opinions" that "it borders on hate speech".

SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said the opinions came from the broadcaster's policy and regulation department.

The week-long campaign parodies the speech by civil rights leader Martin Luther King jnr, and includes the line "I have a dream that one day farmers shall be brutally murdered and workers thrown into a lions den".

The punch line is: "What have you done with your freedom, South Africa? Don't let it go to waste, cherish it."

Bongani Keswa, publisher of Sowetan and Sunday World, said the SABC was the only broadcaster that had refused to run the campaign.

SABC being 'dishonest'

The Sowetan had wanted it to be broadcast on SAfm and Metro FM.

The commercial radio stations Talk Radio 702, Kaya FM and YFM had run the campaign, he said.

Keswa said the SABC was "dishonest" if it said it had refused on the grounds that the campaign bordered on hate speech.

The content of the advertisement reflected the reality because it referred to stories that had been covered by the Sowetan newspaper.

"We submitted it to our lawyers and were told there was nothing wrong with it," said Keswa.

Keswa said the message of the campaign was that freedom also brought responsibility.

'Don't want to acknowledge reality'

He thought it conveyed the message that although a great deal of progress had been made since 1994, the citizens of South Africa still were being short-changed because of high levels of racial hatred, crime and HIV/Aids.

Keswa said the Sowetan's switchboard had been ringing non-stop since the campaign started running last Friday.

He said people who were unhappy "either did not want to understand, or they did not want to acknowledge the bitter realities faced by many South Africans".

THE ADVERTISEMENT

"I still have a dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up against each other and erupt into an oasis of crime, grime and home to racial attacks and injustice.

"I have a dream that my children will be repeatedly raped, sodomised and left to fend for themselves long after HIV and Aids have taken me away.

"I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day farmers shall be brutally murdered and workers thrown into a lions' den.

"Let chaos ring from the streets of South Africa - and when this happens we will all join hands and sing: 'Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'

"What have you done with your freedom South Africa?

"Don't let it go to waste, cherish it.

"This Freedom Day message sadly brought to you by Sowetan - the soul truth."

- Beeld