Holy Cows. Gareth van Onselen

Holy Cows - Gareth van Onselen


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It defines respect as a ‘feeling of deep admiration for someone elicited by their qualities or achievements’. You will notice how, by that definition, respect is a consequence of action: by behaving in a manner deemed by someone to be praiseworthy or by achieving something a person might celebrate, respect is one of the results that flow from it. In other words, it must be earned.

      That requires a fundamentally different attitude to human agency. It suggests that individuals are responsible for maintaining their own reputation. Now you begin to see how, when these two diametrically opposed understandings meet, a fundamental confusion is the inevitable result.

      Consider the exchange below that took place on a local-radio talk show in November 2012 between a member of the public and Blade Nzimande, general-secretary of the South African Communist Party. The topic was a painting by artist Brett Murray called The Spear, which depicted President Zuma with his genitals exposed, in a Lenin-like pose. The artwork generated a huge public outcry.

      Caller: … May I ask you, what do you say respect is?

      Nzimande: What do I say respect is?

      Caller: Yes, what does it mean?

      Nzimande: Are you asking me really, seriously? Respect is not to paint me as a gang-rapist. If you want to criticise me, if I am wrong or you disagree, you are entitled to do that but to paint me as a gang-rapist … that is being disrespectful. To actually paint the president of the Republic of South Africa with his private parts …

      Caller: Surely …

      Nzimande: … that is disrespectful. Let me just say also what I do not like is the hypocrisy. Some of these [white people who fail to show respect] today, who appear to be democrats, at the height of the struggles against apartheid, when we were being butchered by the regime, they never marched to P.W. Botha’s house. They never marched to F.W. de Klerk’s office even. Many of them were actually enjoying the privileges of apartheid. Today they are the big ones who are talking about freedom of expression when they took cover at the time when it mattered most to actually fight against this thing.

      Caller: The dictionary says respect is a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something, elicited by their abilities, qualities or achievements. So respect, to respect someone, you have to respect them for what they do or say, or the way they behave. So how can we respect certain people …

      Nzimande: … No, I don’t know where you take that, I don’t agree with your dictionary, I am sorry. It’s your own dictionary. You respect a person whether you agree with him or not.

      Caller: It’s in the dictionary. And we …

      Nzimande: … No, no, no, don’t come and quote the Oxford English Dictionary, I’m sorry, because that is precisely the issue I am fighting. This kind of imposition of certain culture values at the complete disregard of the cultural values of the overwhelming majority of the people in this country, that’s my issue.

      For the purposes of this essay, that is as rich a piece of evidence as you are likely to find. It has in it every contentious element of the thesis at hand – all of which meet in a fundamental collision over the meaning of a word that is ubiquitous. On the one hand is Nzimande, unequivocal in his belief that respect is due to the president regardless of his conduct and, on the other, the caller, who is of the view the president should earn his due. Never shall the two meet.

      Respect is a word that is used every day. But it means two different things – something earned through virtuous conduct or something demanded and due regardless of behaviour, depending on who you ask. And while we spend an inordinate amount of time discussing who or what we should respect, there is precious little discussion about the word itself and whether or not we actually share a common understanding of its nature in the first place.

      To dismiss this confusion as abstract theory is to profoundly misunderstand its real-life consequences. The saga of The Spear is itself a powerful illustration. For a month, South Africa tore itself apart over the painting. There were marches and, at the height of the hysteria, even a call for the artist to be stoned to death. Eventually the painting was defaced and with it the constitutional right to artistic expression was defaced too.

      But there are also political consequences. One of the ideas mooted recently by the South African Communist Party is a law guaranteeing ‘respect’ for the president and protecting him from insult. KwaZulu-Natal SACP deputy chairperson, Nomarashiya Dolly Caluza, described the party’s motivation for the suggestion like this: ‘We have African values. We don’t want to see [those aspects] of foreign cultures imposed on us in South Africa. According to African values, respect is the one thing which shows you are a human being … Our president is the chairperson of the African Union [sic], he has been elected to an international education committee, but in his own country he is not respected. We are saying enough is enough. We cannot just keep quiet and let them continue doing this.’

      That proposal has, so far, been confined to rhetoric. But should it ever be enacted, the result would be an Orwellian South Africa indeed. And the logic to it would be just as absurd because one can no more demand that a person feel a certain way by law than you can regulate love. People feel what they feel. Each emotion is particular to an individual, as are the triggers that elicit it, each arising from a unique set of experiences and beliefs. One cannot will respect into being by force.

      Here is a thought experiment designed to illustrate the absurdity inherent in the suggestion that you can force respect onto a person. Imagine a law is passed demanding you respect the colour X. To ensure this, it prescribes you never insult that colour. If you do, you will be punished. Imagine, too, that you deeply dislike the colour X. All that law can do is control your demonstrable behaviour towards that colour by threatening you. Even if you chose to comply with it, it cannot generate inside of you an actual feeling of respect. If anything, it is likely to double your hostility towards it. For now, you are not only required to feign respect for it publicly but your feelings must be suppressed and no one reacts well to that.

      The argument often offered up in response to that is that people are different from inanimate objects – they have feelings. That is true. But the moment you elevate one person’s feelings above another, you subvert individual freedom. Many people respect abhorrent ideas or despicable people – that is their right. And while you can make a case that there exists a public duty to educate and inform them otherwise through reason, evidence and argument, you nevertheless cannot deny them the right to feel that way in the first place. In fact, you cannot prevent it at all because outside of brainwashing, human emotions have a life of their own.

      The assumption that you can control impulse and private conviction gives the game away. There is a word for that kind of demonstrable obsequiousness: deference. The OED defines deference as ‘polite submission and respect’. And, for many in the ANC, that is the real impetus behind such a law and its collective understanding of the idea – submission. Misused in this way, respect becomes part of the language of victimhood, devoid of agency both on the part of the person to whom it refers (who is no longer required to act in an upstanding fashion) and the person of whom it is demanded (who is required to respond like an archetype, not an individual). Certainly, that is the attitude one might expect from a king, but not an elected president. The inevitable consequence of it is some kind of censorship because at its heart is control and manipulation.

      Here is another illustration: how many people out there dislike Brett Murray’s painting yet still respect the president? You can be sure there are many. The ANC seems to be of that persuasion. Likewise, how many like Murray’s painting and still respect the president? Again, no doubt many. The painting itself bears no general relationship to one’s respect for the president.

      Even if it did, even if there were a selection of people whose opinion of President Zuma was so fragile that this particular depiction swayed them one way or the other, there is nothing wrong with that. And the fact that it might swing them one way or the other tells you everything.

      Every day, everyone is presented with an endless stream of opinions and information, both favourable and unfavourable, and which may or may not influence the degree to which they respect a person or a set of behaviours. That is how an opinion is formed. If one were


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