Political correctness: Bullard, Maas, Qwelane and the origins

There are quite a few misconceptions about political correctness. Some have the preconception that it stifles public debate. Some say it infringes on their right to freedom of speech.

One-word response: fallacy.

Political correctness doesn’t stifle debate, just as much as the criminalisation of homicide doesn’t promote debate by preventing you from literally silencing your opponent.

Political correctness has its roots in the rejection of Imperialism/Colonialism and the Patriarchy. These ideologies were enforced by organised religion and created the super class: the Caucasian Heterosexual Cisgender Male. Everyone not Caucasian, heterosexual, cisgender and male is still fighting for basic human rights to this day. Yes, supposed “Western” culture has caused much damage and it is through egalitarian and progressive foundations like the South African Constitution that human dignity for all persons is installed.

People often say that we have become oversensitive. It is not about being oversensitive – it is about embracing basic human dignity and equality.

Another defence for being politically incorrect is Moral Relativism. It is defined in an ethics context as Normative Relativism, this being “the prescriptive or normative position that as there is no universal moral standard by which to judge others, we ought to tolerate the behaviour of others even when it runs counter to our personal or cultural moral standards.”

This patent postmodern ethical approach cannot escape reciprocity, though. Ah, the joy of reciprocity, of double-edged swords – it cuts both ways. Normative Relativism also could be interpreted as that you are free to libel since it might be your personal conviction. Alas no ... It is not.

According to the University of London’s Department of Philosophy Moral Relativism can be explained as follows:

Standards of morality are all culturally relative ... therefore it is wrong [emphasis in the original] to pass moral judgement upon the practices of other cultures. This style of relativism is obviously self-refuting, since its very formulation involves a non-relative use of "wrong" (or whatever equivalent) in order to rule out non-relative moral judgements. Judgements like "It is wrong to pass moral judgement upon the practices of other cultures" or "It’s wrong to criticize other cultures" are themselves (at least on the face of it) trans-cultural or non-relative moral judgements.

The Stanford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy discusses Moral Relativism:

Most often [Moral Relativism] is associated with an empirical thesis that there are deep and widespread moral disagreements and a metaethical thesis that the truth or justification of moral judgments is not absolute, but relative to some group of persons. Sometimes "moral relativism" is connected with a normative position about how we ought to think about or act towards those with whom we morally disagree, most commonly that we should tolerate them.

Political correctness is very much an ethical matter. And political incorrectness often leads to horrendously shocking implications, and often those who defy political correctness suffer the consequences of their actions.

Three important examples of the defiance of political correctness and the catastrophic consequences:

David Bullard
David Bullard wrote a racist column for the Sunday Times and a spectacle of epic proportions ensued and subsequently the Sunday Times fired Bullard, who now trolls the net and leaves random comments about societal oversensitivity.
[News24]
[Independent Online]
[Pierre de Vos].

Deon Maas
Deon Maas wrote an impertinent column on freedom of religion for Satanism for Rapport and got fired after brouhaha and an sms campaign by readers calling for a boycott which threatened the commercial interests of the newspaper. Here societal propriety in a deeply conservative market dominated.
[News24]
[Independent Online]
[Pierre de Vos].

Jon Qwelane
Jon Qwelane wrote the most morally reprehensible column for the Sunday Sun of 20 July 2008 called “Call me names, but gay is not okay.” All hell broke loose as the Press Ombudsman and the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) received more complaints about this article than ever before, and as far as I know that record still stands. Qwelane is currently facing a case before the Equality Court and News24 dropped his column after the controversy.
[Mail & Guardian]
[News24]
[Pierre de Vos]
[Mambaonline – Qwelane to face Equality Court]
[Mambaonline – Wrong is wrong].

We have political correctness for a reason. It just enforces a dignitarian approach (I humbly borrow from Justice Albie Sachs here). Former Constitutional Court Judge Albie Sachs explains this concept in his book The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law. It is an approach where human dignity is valued above all else. It prevents ideologues, demagogues and the general public from callously trampling all over minority human rights.

With rights comes responsibility, and you cannot just purge out what you like, it might just expose the bigot that you really are. We operate within legal frameworks and societal propriety; we always have done so and we always will: we will thus have to keep to the codified standards or we might run foul of the law.

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(Originally appeared on Litnet: http://www.litnet.co.za/cgi-bin/giga.cgi?cmd=cause_dir_news_item&cause_id=1270&news_id=87586&cat_id=166

Mini-seminars: Political Correctness: http://www.litnet.co.za/cgi-bin/giga.cgi?cmd=cause_dir_custom&cause_id=1270&page=korrek)

Paranoia: the fuel of the Culture War

I have harboured the idea contained in the title for a while now and subjectively it has been proven correct time after time. It is uncanny when one has a grasp on the raison d’être of a social phenomenon and impertinently watch from the sidelines. There is a certain magical realism to it. One is both connected and unconnected, both objective observer and subjective participant. It might sound mutually exclusive but alas it is not.

Intent: the one word which makes the world’s difference. Intent is questioned ad nauseam by a great variety of demagogues, religious and other social conservatives, extremists of every hue, even some moderates and the Pink community sometimes – in a self-reflective way I guess.

After intent has been questioned, more than often being misinterpreted as offensive, contrary to family values, and/or against nature, some will inevitably conjure up outlandish conjecture and delusive interpretations. Those who feign a sense of credibility and scientific aptitude often distort, contort and miscontextualise valid scientific thought to create the illusion that there is factual basis for their conjecture and misrepresentations.

The Culture War thus became a war of words, a battleground of propaganda and counterpropaganda, limitless in its scope of malice and wanton abuse of rhetoric, concept and the lives of the real people caught in the crossfire.

The Pink community has along the way gained a modicum of true equality (only though in some countries). Activists for Pink community equality have been campaigning without respite for the decriminalisation of homosexuality, protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and the hotly contested term “marriage equality” – the right of same sex couples to marry to gain all the rights heterosexual couples enjoy which many take for granted. Think of visitation rights in hospital etc.

For each right fought for and granted in some cases the religious zealots have had a knee jerk reaction of note. Mass hysteria is oft spread through congregations and hysterically, mostly factious and fallacious chain emails: the most pedestrian of methods.

The fight for the decriminalisation of homosexuality was met with a crass counter reaction by the Culture War Warriors. It is contrary to the natural order they say. I wonder if some penguins attack the gay ones... It seems not, these stately birds do not have discriminating tendencies. It is unbiblical they say. They forget that the seminal text is often mistranslated and misinterpreted and contradicts itself quite a couple of times. Many court records confirm the Culture War Warriors’ unhealthy preoccupation with sex; it seems if they imagine gay people they conjure up images of decadent orgies. No darlings, we do not nookie all day long. It is not about sex, it is about being decriminalised, about not being a de facto criminal. It is about attaining basic dignity and equality. Being gay cannot be a crime like being left handed cannot be a crime. And no, it is not a sinful lifestyle choice. Nobody chooses a lifelong risk of defamation, hate speech, harassment, intimidation, intolerance, discrimination, abuse, assault, and possible premature death by violent attack.

Protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity brought along a toxic backlash by the bigots of this world. Those queers want “special rights” they claimed. No special rights just equal rights we answered. Is it too much to ask for to ask not to be fired from your job or kicked out of your apartment just because of your sexual orientation or gender identity?

Marriage equality... A hotly contested concept... Who would have thought that the granting of equal rights, not special rights, will ever be placed on the ballot? But it happened, on many occasions, the most publicised is most likely the Proposition 8 (or as it is been dubbed, Proposition Hate) debacle. The Culture War Warriors claim that same sex marriage will destroy traditional marriage and will destroy the world. Strange logic there but they have not really been noted for their intellectual prowess anyway. Even the Pope, in his little dress, said something to that effect during his recent visit to Portugal. Despite this Portugal became the eighth country in the world and the sixth in Europe to grant full marriage rights to its denizens. The others are Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Canada and South Africa. The South African brouhaha warrants a full thesis. It was a lengthy legal struggle fought in large part by Fourie and Bonthuys all the way to the Constitutional Court, which ordered Parliament to legalise same sex marriage in December of 2005.

The thread that runs through the knee-jerk reaction and backlash of each of these rights gained: severe, unadulterated, debilitating, emaciating paranoia. The Culture War Warriors of this day and age are so paranoid and illogical and bereft of the normal functioning of all of their mental faculties that the condition justifies inclusion in Psychiatry textbooks, medical taxonomies, classified as a formal psychiatric disease by both the World Health Organisation in the ICD and the American Psychiatric Association in the DSM.

Should this medically certifiable paranoia not have existed both sides of the battleground would have had a much healthier existence, no war of words, no hateful propositions, and no innocent people caught in the crossfire. And maybe some hope for peaceful coexistence...

An injury to one is an injury to all, free Steven and Tiwonge now - a memento

A protest email regarding the arrest, remand, conviction, sentencing and incarceration of Steven and Tiwonge, Amnesty International's prisoners of conscience:
Sent out 22 May 2010, 21:20 to recipients, SA GLAAD & SA GLAAD Gauteng Facebook groups and SA GLAAD fan page.

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To: justice@malawi.gov.mw, sg-justice@sdnp.org.mw, lawcom@lawcom.mw, lawcom@sdnp.org.mw, highcommalai@telkomsa.net, distms@malawi.gov.mw, infopol@africa-online.net, chadzapg@malawi.gov.mw,

CC: InfoDesk@ohchr.org, nationalinstitutions@ohchr.org, gmagazzeni@ohchr.org, civilsocietyunit@ohchr.org, dexrel@ohchr.org

Subject: Free Steven and Tiwonge now

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Dear Representatives of the Government of Malawi

It was with much disgust that we learnt of the conviction of Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza for a supposed indecent act. Their crime: daring to hold a symbolic marriage ceremony. Should we remind you that aforementioned individuals have been convicted under colonial-remnant law?

Steven and Tiwonge have been adopted as “prisoners of conscience” by Amnesty International. The governments of Great Britain and the United States of America, inter alia, have been vocal opponents of their conviction. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, condemned the conviction and said that protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a fundamental human right that cannot be overruled on cultural grounds. The South African Human Rights Commission condemned the ruling as dehumanising and urged Malawi to revisit its laws. The South African official opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, called the ruling regressive and reprobated the ruling in no uncertain terms.

Moreover a plethora of civil society and human rights organisations including but not limited to Outrage!, Section27, OUT LGBT Well-being, The Joint Working Group, the South African Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, and International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission have all expressed strong disapproval. The South African Municipal Workers Union of COSATU also weighed in and said in a press release that: “repressing sections of our community because of their sexual orientation is not acceptable, and that we refuse to be silenced and divided by prejudice and homophobia. Let’s remember: An injury to one is an injury to all! Free Steven and Tiwonge now!”

The sentence is inhumane for an act which shouldn’t even be a crime. The refusal of bail and the remand of Steven and Tiwonge are abhorrent, as is the conviction.

It is time for Africa, and in this case Malawi, to rid itself from the defunct colonial codified discriminations and human rights oppressions.

We urge you to overturn the ruling, scrap these discriminatory laws, and to free these men.

Signed
Cobus Fourie
SA GLAAD