Mandela Foundation flag case inconsistent
I must say I was very confused by the Nelson Mandela Foundation apartheid flag hate speech case.
Before I get into why, let me make it clear upfront – this is not a defence of the “apartheid flag”. I am just confused by the Mandela Foundation and its own internal logic.
I am not the only person who has wondered why the Mandela Foundation is going after the apartheid flag when our entire landscape is filled with apartheid symbolism that they have never cared to tackle.
The #RhodesMustFall movement was sparked by a generation of students saying they could not stomach the idea of the Rhodes statue remaining in a prime spot at the University of Cape Town without challenge.
Yet Mandela himself was happy to form the Mandela-Rhodes Foundation – and pair up his name with that of one of the worst imperialists. Given this kind of “reconciliatory” track record of Mandela’s legacy acts, one wonders why the Mandela Foundation has jumped on the public display of the apartheid flag. Why not campaign for the removal of Die Stem in the national anthem then?
I know several white Afrikaans-speaking South Africans who refuse to sing Die Stem because it reminds them of the trauma of growing up in a brutal Calvinist, authoritarian family culture.
I remember a gay colleague from an Afrikaner family saying Die Stem evoked memories of the brute militarism of the South African Defence Force’s medical torture of gay men.
Now imagine if some white people are traumatised, what it means for many black people who grew up with that symbol of being dominated?
But of course there are many such symbols in SA.
It is only last month that the name of Hoërskool Hendrik Verwoerd in Tshwane had its name changed.
All over SA, so much is named after people who brutalised and oppressed the indigenous peoples. One wonders then, by what rational and logical framework did the Mandela Foundation come to pick one symbol over others?
By what thinking process do they argue that the apartheid flag constitutes hate speech when they leave other symbols to stay standing? Their case emphasises that it is “gratuitous” display that constitutes harassment and hate speech.
Yet last time I visited the University of the Free State, I saw public spaces named after Boer nationalists, such as Martinus Steyn, all over the place – it can’t be that the Mandela Foundation did not know about such cases. Some serious questioning has to be done here because the Mandela Foundation’s case is precedent setting.
My own view is that firstly, if SA is going to deal with the problem of apartheid symbols then it must do so with clarity. We would have to pass very well-crafted legislation that deals specifically with apartheid symbols and provides for a schedule of symbols to be classified as hate speech.
This would be very similar process that Germany underwent to de-Nazify its society.
The reason we have to be precise in deciding how to classify specific historical hate paraphernalia is because we need to be consistent and rational in doing this so that we do not infringe on the right to freedom of expression.
The Equality Court is tending towards pronouncing almost anything that hurts people’s feelings as hate speech. This is just dangerous.
Humans have the right to hate and insult each other. We should be careful not to impose “niceness” and criminalise speech simply because it offends.
Some utterances can be offensive, but are surely not a matter for the police and the courts. Policing speech leans towards policing thoughts and ideas, so we cannot be arbitrary about restricting speech. As things stand, the Mandela Foundation has weakened the standing of free speech by being inconsistent with what it targets.