The rise of the hashtag
We used to write letters, march, demonstrate, remonstrate, argue and debate. Nowadays we’re more likely to take a selfie, type a hashtag on Twitter or boo some participants in a song contest and then pat ourselves on the back and return to business as usual.
I understand, for example, that the ‘#bringbackourgirls’ demonstration on social networking sites was an attempt to bring the kidnapped Nigerian girls to the notice of those in positions of power. So it was somewhat pointless and self-defeating for Prime Ministers and Presidents to pose with the hashtag. The response of David Cameron should have been to thank the British public for caring about these girls from the Christian community who were kidnapped by terrorists for their faith. He should then have responded with protests to the government and offers of practical support to find the girls.
The media has been noticeably silent about the fact that Boko Haram have been attacking and killing Christian children for years. Shockingly they tend to kill boys rather than kidnap them. So few people in the West have noticed this phenomenon and the BBC has usually dismissed it as ‘inter communal violence’ without any acknowledgement of the persecution of the Christian community by some very malevolent Islamists.
The hashtag campaign is broadly to be welcomed I just worry that it is missing the point. This is not a feminist issue of the trampling on a woman’s right to education because men and women are both victimised. The danger about the campaign is apathy towards the suffering of boys.
Gender was also in the spotlight last weekend as a bearded man in a frock won the Eurovision Song Contest. I watched the first half hour of the contest for its comedy value but even Graham Norton seemed to be having a lacklustre evening and I gave up in boredom. The Polish Carry-On girls won the British public vote for their extremely politically incorrect performance but, predictably, the man in drag won the show.
This appeared to be less about a celebration of European song writing and more a political protest against Putin’s unremarkable homophobia (let’s face it many countries have much more repressive laws) and Russia’s military adventurism in the Crimea.
Well, my own form of political protest is not to join the BBC and obeisant media in referring to this man as a ‘she’. On Telegraph blogs Brendan O’Neil asks: “Did everyone overnight transmogrify into a gender studies student and imbibe the unhinged idea that gender is nothing more than a playful identity.”
Protest, for me these days is not about pointless marches or hashtags but about insisting that words continue to hold their original meanings. In particular this applies to marriage and gender.