Submitted by Troy Thiel
The recent homophobic writings of Jon Qwelane and the subsequent LGBT community reaction have highlighted many questions about where the borders of free speech lie and journalists’ responsibility regarding the effect of their words.
With visible examples of hate crimes, this is an emotionally charged subject. Respectfully, I would, however, like to examine this problem from some different angles. Should Qwelane be punished or educated?
Democratic South Africa, 14 years on, is still a really young democracy and, like anything humanly created, by no means perfect. Freedom of expression means that both advocates of an idea and those who speak against it should have equal opportunity to have their voice heard. Lessons from all around the world teach us that in the interests of civil rights, governments should not have strict control over free speech — even if the ideas are unpopular.
Constitutionally we are protected against prejudice based on race, religion or sexuality, but this does not mean that the idea of prejudice cannot be or is not held by people in our country. Many times in South Africa people turn to the government to protect their rights when these are catered for in the Constitution. I would suggest that these rights should more often be defended by the use of free speech, and it is every citizen’s obligation to do so. Defending the sanctity of the Constitution is our job.
The grey area of the argument against “hate speech” surfaces when trying to assess when the expression of ideas constitutes an action of prejudice (the legal wording in the Constitution refers to direct discrimination). While I mourn the victims of hate crimes, I wonder at the difficulties surrounding the accusation of hate speech. I ask how rationally complex it must be to try to connect someone’s hateful words with the enraged actions of some groups and individuals (particularly as a legal and not an emotional argument).
The spirit of the Constitution hopes to engender tolerance among the diverse people that make up our country. This is more easily said than done. Majority groups tend to wish to impose their beliefs on minorities; African culture, even though communally based, appears to follow this same trend. The point for education of the masses here is: different is good — for we are all in essence different. In the words of the statesman Haile Selassie, made famous by Bob Marley: “Until bigotry and prejudice and malicious and inhuman self-interest have been replaced by understanding and tolerance and good-will; until all Africans stand and speak as free beings, equal in the eyes of all men, as they are in the eyes of heaven; until that day, the African continent will not know peace.”
I, for my part, choose to live in a South Africa where Jon Qwelane expresses his prejudice (offensive as it is) so that we may challenge his homophobia with ideas of our own. Is this not more tolerable than living in a world where prejudices are whispered behind masks and acted upon in secret?
In many cases actions are preferable to words, and though community protests are certainly an outlet for rage and do sometimes cause political manoeuvring to placate the aggrieved, I feel they are not a long-term agent for change. If anyone wishes to change the way millions of people think, the best tool I can think of is education. As with most things, this begins at home. Educate your family, those with whom you work and especially the people who object to you. For the brave who decide to take up this challenge, especially in arguments surrounding sexuality, I have three tips for you:
1. Keep in mind that people are inclined to think that only their view is correct. Views on sexuality are also generally based on centuries of moral judgement and reinforcement provided by society, culture and religions. Be patient.
2. As a point of departure, perhaps base your discussion on the universality of prejudice. There is a reason why race, religion and sexual orientation are dealt with in the same clause in the Constitution, for they are all doorways to similar oppressions.
3. Use good examples to try to explain that sexuality is diverse and, according to mountains of historical evidence, has always been. Should you be inclined to wish to use some scientific study to bolster your argument, the most inclusive and thus far accurate study on human sexuality is the work of Alfred Kinsey. If you choose this foundation for discussion, be prepared also to introduce the idea of a range of sexuality (people falling between a zero and a six on a scale) rather than the widely used concept of categorisation (that is, gay, bisexual or straight).
Troy Thiel is a DJ without a show. He has a mutable opinion on almost everything and he’s happiest when nobody believes him. He likes free thinking, chocolate milk and electronica. He lives and survives smog in Johannesburg
I agree sexuality is diverse, I also agree that Cecil Rhodes was probably a Gay Colonialist.
Whilst homophobia is wrong, I also have found that most gay rights activists seem to think that all homosexuals are suffering saints, and that there is not such thing as a racist homosexual.
As well as having little regard for native culture and respect for their views, and, worringly, a blank denial of such a thing as homosexual abuse with the sex tourism trade in young boys, girls etc.
(let alone such cases as an alleged Black lesbian peadophile in Oprah Winfrey’s school.)
I think that a lot of “homophobia” with Africans can also be put down to a patronising attitude towards them by westernised homosexuals, with behaviour that would not be accepted, or defended if it was heterosexual towards men or women.
(“Cottaging” is a part of Gay culture but if White men followed Black women into toilets, asked for a hand job and said that was culture, that would be racist, sexual assault.)
I think that there is prejudice on both sides, and I have also seen and heard homosexuals behave and act like Earnst Rohm, the leader of the SA in Hitler’s Germany and a well known Gay Nazi.
Perhaps we could start by admitting that not all Africans are homophobic and not all homosexuals aren’t racist.
I will certainly agree that not all Africans are homophobic and have definitely met homosexuals that were the most conservative, racist people I know. This article is a call for tolerance engendered by the use of free speech. It also adresses fear in groups which is the basis for prejudice and is almost always based on miseducation. I am a little saddened that the only references to gay people which you make in your comment are derogatory ones, though you are certainly entitled to these opinions. I also think I may have misunderstood some of the points of the argument you propose – who is it that has little regard for local culture and denies abuse in the sex tourism trade?
Most of the gay people I know.
Admittedly in England, and in a little out of the way home county town, however, they did not talk to anything non-white unless they are have had sex with it, or are about to.
And most insist that whilst men may abuse little girls, little boys enjoy their “introduction to the dominations of gay culture” and point blank deny that there is such a thing as an abusive female, which comes as quite a shock to some of the victims of a local female social worker who used to target single underage mothers for abuse.
I also have to go up to London to meet homosexuals who know how to talk to ethnic minorities as people.
If you were wondering I regularly drink in a gay bar, since its next door to where I have singing lessons, but am straight, and all told have found that next to traditional mainland Chinese the most prejudice people, on average, I know are White English (+1 Welsh) homosexuals (men and women).
Basically along the lines of the aforementioned Cecil Rhodes and Ernst Rohm, and people at my single sex all boys English grammar school who thought that the best thing for Africa was “Cecil
Rhodes’ d*ck”. (I quote from them, as they were Gay Nazis.)
I now avoid these people, and after some effort have found non prejudice gay persons, but as a product of a single sex English Grammar school you might find it interesting to depart from the usual position that gay people, as a minority themselves, “empathically understand Black people” (something else I have heard) and considering listening, let alone believing, some of the opinions I have heard voiced by the homosexual products of said English single sex Grammar school, which are sometimes as vile as those of the heterosexual products.
We could all be getting somewhere in understanding if we admit that Black people can be as racist as white people (Chinese, Asian) instead of using the politically correct “xenophobia” and that homosexuals can be as racist as Africans can be homophobic.
(Let alone continue that thought with admittance of such things as “heterophobia” and sexism by women against men, such as discriminating against male nurses and midwives.)
And if we honestly dicussed the various prejudices we have all been subject to, as well as those which are more unusual and connected to our past backgrounds and experiences, without fear of being labelled as politically incorrect or lying.
Thank you for clarifying your experiences that have led to your argument. I now understand your viewpoint far clearer. Though it seems you have had some rather strange interactions with gay people I wonder at the cultural differences in the society you speak of in England and what we live with and face here in South Africa. I wrote the article very specifically to address a local news issue and the public reaction to this. It is always interesting, however, to hear of other experiences from around the world.
If you researched a little you might discover that there are such things in SA all the time, noticeably large scale homosexual rape and racist gangs in prisons, as there are all over the world.
And if you are unaware of world history and that of homosexuality, you would be unaware of one of the reasons why Alexander the Great almost lost his Empire whilst still alive was that his senior officers rebelled and his troops threatened to walk back to Greece, since he wasn’t having (Gay) sex with them (his officers) and had married a Persian women. (And therefore was having heterosexual sex with a different race.)
Let alone the well known example of the Ottoman Empire and their homosexual shock troops the Jannisaries, who were forbidden to marry (have heterosexual sex), consisted of abducted child rape victims from Greek Colonies on Asia Minor who were forceably Islamicised and where attempts to recover by the parents were greeted by summary execution (originally, before they all went to pot) and spent most of their adult lives fighting over dancing boys in the Istanbul souks, embezzling state funds and carrying out human rights atrocities against peasants, (mainly non muslim) in order to prop up a violent, corrupt regime.
Have you actually met any homosexual people, or have any idea of world history and sexual/ racial/ sexuality involvement in oppression? Let alone the archetypical confusion between homosexuality and pederasty, which culminated in the worship of Ganymedes and young boys in the ancient world, to the extent of Hadrian making his teenage lover a God afer he died, when he had met him when he was somewhere around 12-14.
There is a long history of homosexual Imperialists and dictators, racial or otherwise, and whilst many homosexuals are ordinary people, and some are saints, lots of them were nasty greedy, violent, racist, sadistic, imperialist oppressors, just like the heterosexuals.
But the heterosexuals dont try to deny it or claim discrimination, even when there is historical evidence of discriminatory employement practices in favour of Homosexuals based on race, as there was in late Imperial china, when several high ranks of Mandarin were reserved for Mongol descended persons and it was stated quite openly that those Mandarins who had sex with women were an inferior breed, and most high class brothels in Beijing were homosexual.
Discrimination and oppression involves all sorts of people over all sorts of other people, depending on circumstances and chance, and every sort of person has abused their power over some other sort of person, at one time or another, or in one place or another depending on random chance, statistics and cultural history.
Which you would discover if you started listening to people’s experiences with an open mind, checked up on history and delved into the more out of the way places in your local neighbourhood.