Revisiting a Painful Past
AS South Africans celebrated the arrival of a new year, the good wishes and
resolutions for self-improvement were completely overshadowed by an unprecedented backlash on social media over racist comments uttered by a string of both ordinary citizens and those well known in the country.
The offensive anti-black comments on social media posts, which were seemingly unconnected, sparked another painful discussion in South Africa’s embattled race relations story, more than two decades after its move to democracy from an oppressive apartheid past and legacy of white minority rule. The ongoing, often heated, discussions dominated mainstream and social media.
The venting of anger by the public prompted the country’s political parties to become involved. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) laid charges of crimen injuria against the individuals concerned, as well as lodging complaints against them at the South African Human Rights Commission.
South Africa’s Presidential Spokesperson Bongani Majola said President Jacob Zuma has stated that South Africa had addressed institutionalized racism since [independence from white minority rule in] 1994. The problem that remained was that of individuals who still harbored racism and prejudice. Majola said Zuma has emphasized that all should be done to eradicate racism in society, there should be consequences for racism, and that “these people [who made the racist comments] don’t represent the true character of the new South Africa.” He said the ANC has put in place laws to prevent discrimination on the basis of race. But are these laws tough enough? South Africa’s Constitution is unambiguous on the limitations of freedom of expression, and recent calls for the criminalization of racism and glorification of apartheid have been welcomed in many quarters. Lunga Peter, President of the Kwazulu-natal Law Society, told
The Times a call for tightening the law in this direction is welcome. “Notwithstanding that South Africa has the most liberal constitution in the world, which underpins the values of democracy, equality and freedom, including the freedom of expression, it is clear that our laws are not sufficient to address and curb the pockets of overt racist conduct manifested in [Peggy Sparrow’s] post. [Sparrow’s was the first racist comment on social media that launched the current wave of public anger]. We would accordingly urge the state urgently to pass specific legislation to criminalize such conduct.”
Observers have been quick to point out that such law against racial incitement would need to be fairly and consistently applied, and that so long as it was drawn up within the framework of the country’s Constitution it would pass muster in a general consensus.
Many netizens believe the social media backlash was long overdue, and is just the start of getting to the heart of racial prejudice by sparking the examination of deeper underlying issues in the country, most notably economic inequality. What the current racial comments have also highlighted once again is that there is no absolute right to freedom of expression and that hate speech has no place in South Africa or any other country. In the quest for reconciliation, talking to each other has always trumped talking at each other.