Trashing is not a political act, it’s criminal
SA has forgotten the law, which has been replaced by unrelenting political opinion. Citizens can no longer tell the difference between politics and criminality.
At worst, Swedish clothing retailer H&M can be accused of ignorance and insensitivity over its “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle” hoodie, but the trashing of its South African stores is simply criminal. Few acknowledge this.
With right-wing, racist football hooligans all over Europe and Russia chanting monkey slogans at matches, it seems strange that a major corporate citizen of one of the most active anti-apartheid countries could make such a gaffe — not once but twice. (It earlier stated that white mannequins convey a “positive image” in SA stores.)
But what retailer in its right mind would deliberately alienate a large part of its customer base? This leaves one to ponder other reasons, such as that H&M made the error of leaving its reputation in the hands of people who were not up to the responsibility. Or was this a dreadfully misconstrued failure of corporate marketing in the mould of the United Colours of Benetton?
Either way, such egregious errors have become more common in the internet era, illustrating the ease with which reputations are now brought down, often unfairly. In this regard, a report on factchecking website Snopes debunks perverse reports that H&M is devising a new collection of sweatshirts that are “equally racist to all the other races” called the “You’re Not Alone” collection. It is profoundly sad that something so potentially innocent has come down to this.
The hoodie gaffe led politically correct segments of the British press and public to savage the retailer. But not the mum of the black boy who was wearing the hoodie in the “racist” ad, who has told protestors to “get over it”. Ironically, the woman has been racially abused and called a monkey for defending the ad.
It seems interpersonal politics holds sway over critical thinking, with language closed down to suit political agendas. That says something about how political and cultural space has been closed down all over the world due to the influence of the internet. Not only in China or Islamic countries, but also by politically correct ideologues in the West, especially Englishspeaking nations.
This has led to muddled thinking on the difference between politics and criminality, as illustrated by comments made on behalf of AfriForum shortly after the minority group civil rights organisation said it would lay charges of incitement to public violence against EFF commander-in-chief Julius Malema, his acolyte Floyd Shivambu and spokesman Mbuyiseni Ndlozi following the trashing of H&M stores.
AfriForum deputy CEO Ernst Roets said: “Our complaint isn’t concerned with the plundering of shops but with the fact that we have influential people who encourage people to do this and who make statements on social media which seem to show they condone this behaviour to achieve political goals.”
In addition, the DA has announced that it will write to the International Chamber of Commerce to lay an official complaint against H&M for the “racist advert”, reinforcing the perception that SA has truly lost its bearings. There have been precious few voices identifying the store trashings for what they are: criminal acts that warrant charges being laid.
It is pertinent that the media have been silent, as has ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa. This bodes ill after a decade of looting under President Jacob Zuma and his party’s reluctance to act against the capture of law enforcement agencies, not to mention the state’s failure to honour multiple court orders, many of which involve criminal offences.