SABC chair Professor Mbulaheni Maguvhe blindly endorsed ex-COO to please minister, writes Lesiba Seshoka.
Johannesburg - Professor Mbulaheni Maguvhe, chairperson of the SABC board, is a highly decorated man.
I mean educationally. He is an associate professor in the Department of Inclusive Education at my alma mater Unisa. He holds, among others, a diploma in special education and a Master’s degree in education with distinctions. His Doctor of Philosophy degree with specialisations in curriculum and instructional design and development was completed at the University of Pretoria. The title of his dissertation was: “A study of inclusive education and its effects on the teaching of biology to visually impaired learners”.
Just recently he ventured into new territory. He told the nation that violent protests would not be shown on SABC television channels because of the effect on children. He argued that the reason we have so much violence in society is due to television. as such Visuals of violent protes
Visuals of violent protests would be excluded from news bulletins. The public got very confused and some argued that even a professor now agrees with the matric-less guy from the faulty towers of Auckland Park. As professors are generally highly regarded in society, his word was to be interpreted by the many unwashed not only as gospel truth, but also an indication of the correctness of Hlaudi Motsoeneng's theory that showing violence on television breeds violence.
But Maguvhe was simply singing for his supper by blindly endorsing Motsoeneng’s theory. He was attempting to make Communications Minister Faith Muthambi, Motsoeneng’s most vocal praise singer, rejoice.
Fortunately I had the pleasure of being in one room with both Muthambi and Motsoeneng at one point at Auckland Park's faulty towers and thus privy to some details. Muthambi, the Minister of Communications, calls Motsoeneng “boss” most of the time. He publicly said Motsoeneng has rare skills and the SABC would collapse if he were to leave.
But Maguvhe's thesis on the impact of television violence on the viewers was just an opinion which often get confused with fact when expressed by a person with such a magnitude of educational decorations and epaulettes.
Not that Maguvhe was not aware of the confusion his message was likely to send to the public nor was he not aware that he was unqualified to comment as an expert on the impact of violence on television viewers. It is hardly a year since he was appointed to chair of the SABC board and less than two years since he deputised Ellen Tshabalala.
As I write this, he is still the chair and only remaining member of the now-defunct SABC board. He is currently the chair of the board that doesn't exist and also the board by himself. So, both his board and broadcasting experience is minimal.
His office at the Unisa campus in Sunnyside, Pretoria, is a stone's throw away from what is perhaps Africa's largest academic departments of communications, psychology and law. He could easily have popped in or called some of the academics there for some advice on the subject matter he was required to speak on.
Or he could have popped in to see some constitutional law professors there who could have advised him better on the constitutionality of the decision they were making.
At the heart of the battle at the SABC lies complex matters that span across disciplines such as psychology, journalism, labour and constitutional law. Maguvhe did not have to be shy to seek help. A professor can seek help from another on a confusing subject matter. Some in the academy sometimes get confused too by their epaulettes.
As one becomes a professor in a particular subject, he remains a layman in others for which he was not schooled. This is normal and acceptable. As a professor, one is not expected to be a jack of all trades and a master of none. He is expected to master one trade, in his case, curriculum design.
Thus Maguvhe can profess about curriculum and instructional design and the aspects related to it for which he has done studies and then express a layman's opinion in other disciplines.
Perhaps it's important for many of us, the washed, to indicate that one is now expressing a layman's opinion when doing so to avoid making a fool of oneself. A friend of mine called me recently on hearing Maguvhe. He giggled and said “I told you so, learning makes a wise person wiser and a fool more foolish.” Maguvhe had just finished endorsing Motsoeneng then.
What my friend was essentially saying was that there was no difference in thought processes between Motsoeneng the layman and the man with many epaulettes, Professor Maguvhe. Had Maguvhe sought help, he could have avoided the embarrassment of having to reinstate the dismissed employees who were fired for their opposition to the concept of banning protest violence on television.
Secondly, he could have avoided being taken to the Constitutional Court as advice from his fellow academics could have helped him pass constitutional muster.
Newspaper reports indicate that most of the SABC 8 who took the matter to the Constitutional Court are now being harassed, shot at and threatened. They live in fear of their lives. This could have been avoided, had Maguvhe done his work diligently.
As Confucius puts it, “when you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not knowit - this is knowledge”.
Experience is said to be the best teacher. Some people, even though they may not have seen the face of a teacher in their lives, can on the basis of their experience articulate facts far better than those who have gone through tons and tons of textbooks.
A friend of mine refer to these as “organic intellectuals”. But these are a breed that is as rare and scarce as water in the desert. Perhaps Maguvhe had banked on the Arabic adage which says “As the dogs bark, the caravan passes by”. He hoped that as people made the noise about his decision, he would implement and just continue!
* Seshoka is executive director of corporate relations at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He writes in his personal capacity.
The Sunday Independent