Use of racial slur could soon mean prison
JOHANNESBURG — After thieves broke into her car, a white South African motorist lashed out at the responding black police officers. She called black people “plain and simple useless” before unleashing the most offensive racial slur around.
Not the N-word, but the K-word: kaffir.
The word is South Africa’s most charged epithet, a term historically used by whites to denigrate black people and considered so offensive that it is rarely said out loud or rendered fully in print.
Because of her racist tirade, caught on video early this year, the driver, Vicki Momberg, is on trial and will probably face a hefty fine. Because of her rant and several others like it, lawmakers in South Africa, where the wounds of apartheid remain raw, are moving to make hate speech a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
This week, South Africa released a draft law that would criminalize racism by referring future hate speech cases to criminal courts instead of the civil courts where they are currently heard.
“The recent racist utterances and many other incidents of vicious crimes perpetrated under the influence of racial hate, despite our efforts over the past two decades to build our new nation on these values, has necessitated further measures,” Justice Minister Michael Masutha said at a news conference Monday.
The government’s move has ignited a fierce debate. Criminalizing hate speech, opponents say, would have a chilling effect on another hardwon victory: freedom of expression. Under the proposed law, hate speech would be broadly defined as direct or electronic communication that “advocates hatred,” incites violence or causes contempt or ridicule.
A first-time offender could be punished by up to three years in prison, and a repeat offender could face imprisonment of up to 10 years.
Beyond the stiff penalties, critics say, the proposed law would also distract from the real problems in South Africa, where blacks have political power but where economic power and cultural influence remain disproportionately in the hands of whites, who account for only 9 percent of the population.
“Race and racism should be understood as structural problems, problems of inequality, to be resolved through a program of justice and not criminalization,” said Joel Modiri, a lecturer in jurisprudence at the University of Pretoria. “Here you have a black-majority society that is essentially demanding protection from a white minority. It’s revealing the deeper problem that you have a majority in this country that is fundamentally powerless.”
By adopting such a law, South Africa would join Britain, Canada, France, Germany and other countries where hate speech is a crime.
But it would move further away from the United States, a country with which it shares a history of racism by whites against blacks. In the U.S., the First Amendment protects almost all expression, no matter how offensive.