Democracy is an ecosystem. Its survival is dependent on many things: a sound legislative framework, an independent judiciary, a vibrant parliament and a responsive government. Beyond this, it also needs a vigilant, proactive civil society, engaged voters and a free media: three elements that ensure government is held accountable for its actions, transparent about what it does and goaded into serving the best of interests of the people – not of those in power.

The Protection of Information bill is one of the gravest threats to this ecosystem. It will critically undermine the ability for parliament, the media and civil society to ensure accountability and transparency in government. The ANC claims this law is to protect state security but, as many before me have pointed out, its wide-ranging mandate means it can easily be used to cover up wrongdoing, severely punishing those who dare to expose it.

Earlier this week, Pick n Pay’s chairman, Gareth Ackerman, spoke out against the bill. He provided a calm and clear explanation of its potential to damage the economy and deter foreign investment. Financial information could be concealed, as could corruption – thereby severely stymieing the economic freedom needed to foster entrepreneurship and attract investors – both essential ingredients required to combat poverty and narrow the vast gulf between rich and poor.

While the dangers of the Info Bill seem self evident, it is startling that so far Ackerman is the only significant businessman who has criticised it. The silence from the rest of business is as deafening as it is inexcusable.

When the prosperity of our economy, our democracy and our country’s future is being put at risk, you would have thought there would have been a cacophony of outrage from businesses – it is in their interest that the bill does not become law, after all. But no. Two of our biggest and most important business groupings, Business Leadership South Africa and Business Unity South Africa have not said a word. Neither have our largest companies.

What can explain this gutless behaviour: is business hoping this is a battle that will be fought by others? Or that the ANC will suddenly override its totalitarian instincts and dump the legislation at the last minute?

Perhaps a more plausible explanation is that many businesses are simply too afraid to stand up to government because they are reliant upon political goodwill to operate freely. Many businesses unquestioningly and sycophantically signed up to Black Economic Empowerment. This was despite them knowing that BEE had little to with empowering blacks and everything to do with consolidating the ANC’s economic clout: a system designed to massively enrich a tiny yet powerful elite.

Big business thought it would get an easy ride if it cosied up to the ANC. And indeed, with loyal ANC cadres dotting the boards of some of South Africa’s largest companies, business has largely been left alone to get on with making money.

Now they’re really caught in a fix. Even if they are conscious of the long-term dangers of a law like the Info Bill, they are too entrenched in the ANC’s patronage network to speak out about it lest they incur the wrath of the party’s titans and lose business deals and political support as a result.

Our nation’s corporations should have been more careful when they made this Faustian pact with the ANC in the Nineties. In the afterglow of the first democratic elections it must have seemed pragmatic and sensible to cuddle up to the new snouts at the trough. But with the ANC’s non-racial values long squandered by the craven despots that call the shots in the movement now, the folly of such an approach has been exposed.

If the Info Bill is thwarted, it will certainly not be thanks to big business. It will be in spite of it: in spite of a group of companies that have cosily conspired with the ANC to maintain a status quo of wealth in the hands of a few, at the expense of the countless millions who remain economically oppressed.

Alex Matthews is founder of The Soapbox, and its editor-at-large. He blogs at Afrodissident.

“The Soapbox aims to fight political and cultural apathy and to foster tolerance and a culture of intelligent debate” reads the page dedicated to the new website on his blog Afrodissident! That’s a good one and I will definitely try my best to contribute to its launching! There are many reasons for this.

First the number of young people of our generation who do not recognize ourselves in the views aired on mainstream media is always growing and many of us found in blogging an alternative to traditional and conventional views. Even the number of African journalists who are blogging is increasing everyday as the media for which they are working cannot publish their opinions, bringing evidence of the necessity to open the debate on critical issues elsewhere. Blogging is thus, whether you are a professional of information or a citizen X willing to express your views, not only about commenting the world news or sharing your life. It’s about creating the debate to change opinions and try to make dissident voices heard. Just have a look on Congolese blogs dealing with recurrent Kivu crisis, on Nigerian, Ugandan or Kenyan blogs dealing with homosexuality, on Senegalese, Burkinabese or Liberian blogs that feature mining issues, or on South African or Rwandan blogs trying to heal scars inherited from a recent past, and you’ll understand what I’m talking about!

Then I definitely subscribe to the idea of providing a space in which international viewpoints will meet South African opinions to fight political apathy. Seen from Senegal where I migrated a few years ago and from where everyday young boatpeople are embarking on a dangerous journey to find better livings elsewhere, I am convinced that we need this kind of space more than anything to deconstruct mentalities. Let’s take migration for instance! How could I express anything else than encouragement to migrate as I migrated myself, and as I’m reading everyday blogs of African migrants located everywhere in the world or blogs by European or American migrants in Africa? All of them are not less qualified to understand and talk about realities of the places where they are living than those who were born on these soils. Obviously some migrations reflect the inequalities of the global system. Though I still consider that I have to fight against political apathy — in the Western world or Africa — that tends to consider migration as a plague whereas it’s part of the solution!  We’re talking about aid and cooperation but you know better than me, you, living or coming from Mali, Senegal or Nigeria that remittances are far more useful than the so-called aid. In this case political apathy is that of UN agencies workers who do not say a word or international NGOs who are spending billions in cooperation projects: building wells, planting trees, organizing “cultural awareness events” to make people stay! Political apathy is that of the media reporting on “immigration problem” in the North or praising the so-called cooperation projects in the South! Efforts that are to my mind vain but also counterproductive…

Finally, I would insist on accuracy which is one of the guidelines of The Soapbox platform and one of the principles that should lead every blogger. Opinion matters, but accuracy in reporting underlie its pertinence. Especially in contexts and places which recently have undergone crisis. At least four African states went through coups in the past months (Mauritania, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Madagascar – not mentioning places like Kenya or South-Africa who’ve known major troubles last year). Some bloggers did a great job though, reporting while avoiding political polarization which hit the mainstream media at the same time. They’ve found in platforms voicing their documented reports and opinions an opportunity to be heard. I wish The Soapbox will be one of these platforms fed by young people from South Africa and elsewhere, which could nurture their dissidence urge.

Long live The Soapbox!

Sacha is blogger based in Senegal. Read sachaproject, his blog.