14th September 2007, Page 2 - Edition 198

The Midlands Herald

Page 2 — 14th September 2007

From the Chamber — Council (and Press) Matters Council Comment

Strength in numbers

The Borg have landed! Never before have I had such a clear glimpse of the Borg at work on earth. And to think that some of my teachers thought nothing of value could come of watching endless hours of Star Trek! For those deprived of a misspent youth relishing in the social, moral and philosophical imagination of Gene Roddenberry, the Borg Empire was a cybernetic organism (part machine part organic) Collective, travelling through time and space, assimilating or destroying everything before it — seemingly unstoppable. Watching the benches across the chamber you realise that not an individual thought is being expressed. Resolutions, adoptions, items, are merely moved and seconded in boring monotony. In contrast, the DA/IFP side of the chamber can be quite a raucous affair as one after the other concerns are raised, topics are challenged, clarity is sought, debate is initiated (but seldom if ever reciprocated). The average for the year of 15 to 1 questions raised is suddenly quite revealing. In addition, not one motion has come from the other side. And you realise that uMngeni is a microcosm, merely reflecting the larger political order, a glimpse, as it were, into the mind, if not the soul, of the majority party. The Collective, you see, comes first before the individual. In the Borg Collective all thoughts are shared, there can be no freedom of thought, no freedom of conscience. You cannot think anything or do anything without the rest of the collective already knowing about it. You cannot act outside the Collective. So why then are the rights of the individual protected before all else in our Constitution, yet we have a collective ruling order? Surely the two are light years apart. If they are diametrical opposites, the ruling party will pull itself apart as the indi-

Cllr Tim Lindsay-White

vidual mind exerts itself. Change will be forced upon it from within. Never before has it been so clear to me that a collective cannot last without suppression and tyranny. It can only perpetuate itself so long as it assimilates or destroys the individual. So long as its leaders dictate. So ironically it can never really deliver freedom. And by extension cannot attain true democracy — merely a reflection of it. Democracy is a far more sophisticated realisation than collectivism, for it does not merely tolerate, but accommodates, a multiplicity of dissenting views; it preserves freedoms in a real sense. As I watch, the Borg mother ship that we feared might last forever, is already showing signs of stress fatigue just 13 years into its voyage. Cracks are appearing. The leaders at its helm are fighting each other. Corruption in all its departments is pervasive. In struggle it served its collective purpose; at peace it cannot survive the individual. Here in uMngeni, don’t be scared to imagine a change in the administration before long, brought about by its own flaws. It was Einstein who said, “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” What this council, and country, needs, is its individuals to exert their imagination. It is the one thing the collective does not have. It was Einstein too who said, “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination”. Tim writes in his personal capacity You can contact him on 083 379 8051

I have just returned from the two-day AIP conference in Johannesburg last week. The AIP, or Association of Independent Publishers, is a relatively-new organisation that seeks to look after the interests of the small publisher like ourselves. (Phillippa Gordon, the editor of The Meander Chronicle, was there too). The idea is of course that since most of us work in isolation, not being part of a bigger group, we receive very little input such as training, discount for purchases, etc., and so the AIP seeks to redress this. The AIP receives funding from various sources, including from overseas, and thus perhaps 100 delegates were sponsored to fly up and stay at the Indaba Hotel at Fourways. There are a number of exciting projects that the association is starting to put together. Firstly (to keep some of us out of trouble), it has partnered with the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) to provide free legal advice, legal representation and lobbying support. FXI’s Law Clinic staffs the hotline with its in-house attorneys and media expert paralegals, and contracts in media lawyers to represent publishers in court appearances. It will also shortly commence with producing training materials on aspects of media law for use in smaller newsrooms. (That’s us!). Secondly, AIP members have just begun placing their first orders to obtain at a discounted rate the Adobe software products that are so vital in the creation of this product that you now are holding. Since we have became a group of some 150 members — and no longer small individual publications — we have recently secured this deal through the AIP’s pilot “bulk purchase” scheme. It is hoped that in the future this will extend to include computer hardware, digital cameras and other production equipment. Again, bulk membership enables one easier to secure advertising from the larger national advertising, and the Grassroots

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Government Gazette, 1 December 2006, indicates that remuneration of elected members of Council are governed by national directive, in contrast to the unbridled millionaire salaries of management. Parliament is seeking to ensure there Thatching are similar checks and balances to prescribe municipal salaries in the future. moderate on price. Tel/ Council remuneration packages are allfax 036-438 6243, inclusive of pension, medical aid, telAnthony Carte. ephone allowance and travel allowance, and are determined by grade of municipal To Let council consistent throughout the country. HOWICK: Spacious two-bedroom unit in The uMngeni Mayor, the only full-time sought-after and secure councillor, as per the December Gazette complex. Garage and up until the latest adjustment for inflacarport. R800 000. tion, commanded a salary of R36 224,42 Phone 033-330 5527. per month. The Deputy B. Pharmacy (Rhodes) 1973 Mayor and Speaker Adv. Dip. in Hearing Aid Acoustics received R15 938,66 (Pretoria Univ.) 2005 per month each, Hearing Aid Acoustician whilst Executive By appointment, in Howick Commi-ttee members and Pietermaritzburg received R14 942,50 Howick: 103 Main Street; tel. 033-330 3601 Monday, Wednesday and Friday each and ordinary Cell: 082 444 5426 c o u n c i l l o rs Pietermaritzburg: Wembley Pharmacy R10 867,25 per Parklane Centre; tel. 033-394 7855 Tuesday and Thursday month each.

Advertising Procurement (GAP) project last year com-pleted a success-ful field trial from a prototype agency in KZN. Editor Russell Barnes It is now completing the first phase of its detailed business plan for implementation nationally. This includes a feasibility study conducted by Johannesburg-based consul-tants who are experts in the marketing field. Then there is the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) certificate that is widely used in the newspaper-publishing arena and which has been considered prohibitively expensive for the smaller newspapers. The ABC eases the mind of advertisers that the publication does what it says it does by chec-king details — the number of copies printed, frequency and area of circulation, and issuing a certificate every six months. AIP members will now obtain all this for a lower fee. There was so much more besides but, briefly, one other valuable benefit of the twoday summit is the opportunity to develop relationships with others in the press, listen to their own day-to-day problems (and solutions) — and to keep in touch by e-mail. All of this is most encouraging.

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