Freedom of expression and the KKNK

Mike van Graan

Delivered during the KKNK Oopgesprek, April 2006, Oudtshoorn

I recently had a play, Green Man Flashing, that told the story of a senior cabinet minister who hails from KwaZulu-Natal and who, six weeks before the 1999 election, is alleged to have raped his personal assistant. If this news becomes public, there will be major repercussions for the ruling party. So they send a delegation to convince the woman not to go through with the charges. Part of the pressure brought to bear on the woman is what could happen to her if she charges her powerful rapist. The play juxtaposes what is "right" as determined by those in power, against the pandemic of violence against women.

After the performances we invited the audience to express their views on the play in a Comment Book. The most recurring phrases described the play as "Brave", "Courageous". These comments troubled me greatly. We had just celebrated ten years of democracy, ten years of the constitutional right to freedom of expression, and yet people thought that it was brave for a playwright to explore the moral ambiguities of the current political establishment.

What does this say about our society? That while we have universal human rights enshrined in our constitution, in practice there are insidious forms of censorship. Before 1989, there were real consequences to practising freedom of creative expression. Works were banned. Writers were detained. Artists placed under house arrest. You could be marginalised by publicly-funded cultural institutions. For goodness sake, I was arrested for doing a piece of street theatre, which constituted an illegal gathering. Yet artists created and challenged the apartheid state. Then one had to be brave, for there were real consequences.

Yet over the last eleven years we have been intimidated into silence. We have censored ourselves, too afraid to explore contemporary themes, for fear of alienating the new elite or being called anti-transformation or racists, scared that we won't get funding from the new big brothers who control public purse strings.

A few months after Green Man Flashing's final season Jacob Zuma plagiarises the play and is charged with rape. Life imitates art. Unfortunately, real life cannot be censored. And so we cannot be protected from the shocking language of Zuma's supporters when they declare, "Kill the bitch"; from their violence when they burn posters with her picture; and from the sex with its intimate and outrageous details. Far more shocking than what most art could ever hope to be.

Examples of censorship are all around us. Political parties in a particular area prevent other parties from organising in that area. The Treatment Action Campaign is barred from participating in an international AIDS conference for fear that they will criticise the president. Cultural policies are being reviewed at the moment, but arts organisations that have been critical of the DAC are excluded from participation in this review. A young woman playwright applies to the National Arts Council to fund her one-person play in which the actress portrays a variety of Muslim woman characters in post-9/11 Cape Town. The NAC tells her that before they will consider funding, she has to rewrite the play to include other racial groups and other religions.

The truth is that in our democracy, censorship is probably more rife than when we had a censorship board! There is a general absence of public debate and intellectual engagement, and we have become passive participants in rendering our Constitution meaningless. In so doing, we compromise our rights and allow others to create a democracy in their self-serving image.

It is they who have formal political, economic, media or religious power who most compromise these rights when the practice of these rights conflict with their interests, their beliefs, their worldviews. Because they have power, they are able to threaten, intimidate, and get their way, often not out of reasonable and rational persuasion, but because of the damage they could cause.

Which brings me to the current storm in a FU Cup of an Afrikaans boy band called Go Away Police Car. Religion stirs up more passions than anything else, so it's often difficult to have a reasonable debate, but let's acknowledge that:

1. the offending words were written on a fan's wallet - they were never intended for public consumption; it's like Jacob Zuma's defence using the stolen, private notes of the accuser about her past to portray her as a slut
   
2. the words were written by one member of the group, yet now the whole group is being demonised; if a dominee is exposed as having an affair, then surely it is that person's sin, and not that of the whole church?
   
3. the offending words were scribbled in a bar, after a conversation which we know little about, and we are now making judgements about these words without understanding the context.

People of faith should be shocked, angered and sad at the words written on the wallet. Shocked that someone could feel so alienated from God that he would write it. Angered that it could be the institutional church that could possibly be the reason for this alienation. And sad that the writer could represent a generation of similarly disaffected people.

Dertig jare gelede was ek op skool. Dit was 1976. Die vorige regering wou Afrikaans op swart skole afdwing as 'n taalmedium. Kinders het op straat gegaan, uit protes. They were arrested, shot at, maimed and even killed. The Christians in our class were asked, "How can you be Christians when a government that claims to be Christian is doing this?" Christianity was rejected as a white man's religion - because of the behaviour of those who claimed to represent God. Children were not allowed to express their legitimate opposition, and they faced the ultimate censorship: death.

It is the church that has led the attacks on Fokofpolisiekar. And it is they who now, like the Pharisees of old, "forgive" the group so they can appear at the festival, but on the condition that they don't say anything else offensive. Yet only a few years ago, the Church itself had to repent, it had to ask for forgiveness for practising heresy for decades, for providing theological justification to a racist system that robbed people of their dignity, that trampled on their human rights, that denied that they, too, were made in God's image. These were outrageous blasphemies. And now we wonder why younger people reject the church?

What is the right thing to do? The loving thing? What would be the Christian thing to do? To ban them? To shut them up? Despite the Constitution granting everyone the right to freedom of thought and expression? If you have the right to believe and to say so, others have the right not to believe, and to say so too.

Let's consider the shoe being placed on the other foot. The Constitution forbids discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. The KKNK hosts a debate on gays within the church. The KKNK gives an opportunity to a church representative to express the church's position on gays that may be contrary to the provisions of the Constitution. What if the gay lobby had screamed and shouted and pressured the KKNK not to do that? The church would have been outraged that its right to freedom of expression had been impinged upon. And yet it seeks to bully others into exercising freedom of expression on its terms.

This is an arts festival. It is not a church service or a school bazaar or a family newspaper. There will be swearing, nudity, challenging of dogmas. When you go to the movies, you choose what to see depending on the symbols. If you don't like the Stormers exercising their democratic right to drop their passes and miss their tackles, you can switch off the TV or not go to Newlands. It's the same here. KKNK management creates an environment for a range of forms of creative expression and debate. They don't have to agree with everything that takes place or that is said. Responsibly, they indicate which shows might cause offence and how. As a festival-goer you have the right to choose where to go. Afrikaanssprekendes is mos nie almal dieselfde nie. Some are believers, others agnostics, still others atheists, and some are not sure what they are. Artists aren't all the same. Politically, some are conservative, some liberal, some progressive, others radical. That's how it is in all communities. If you don't like something, that's fine. Don't go. Say so, write letters to the press, even protest, but you have no right to prevent other people from saying what they want to, or from having access to what they choose. That's democracy.

The KKNK management feared violence at the first Karre concert. Thankfully, there was none. That they even had to prepare for this eventuality is extremely sad. What does it say about people of faith? How different is that - or the threat by artists to beat up reviewers - from others who wreak violence in the name of religion because they don't like what cartoons are saying?

We really need perspective. Fokofpolisiekar is a band. And for goodness sake, they are not role models. Don't burden them with that. By their very name you should know that they are anti-establishment. The Beatles boasted that they were more popular than Jesus. The Beatles have come and gone. Fokofpolisiekar will come and go. But the recent outcry has made them famous countrywide. Their anti-establishment brand has been enhanced, possibly encouraging others to do the same or to ride on its momentum. Like Pieter Dirk Uys who took out a full-page ad in Krit and used the original words on the wallet, but was asked to change them to something less inflammatory.

There are greater evils in our society for the church to rise up against. Crime, 800 people dying daily of AIDS, violence against women and children: where is the moral outrage? Or have we simply aligned our Christian practice with the new political elite, choosing the easy targets when they present themselves?

Finally, I'd like to address artists. Amidst all the outcry about Karre, very few artists have made their voices heard. Those who have, have generally condemned the band. Today, it's the Karre. Tomorrow, it may be you. You don't have to agree with what the band says or doesn't say, but you have a responsibility to defend their right to say it. The rights we now enjoy were paid for in blood. We disempower ourselves as artists when we give others the right to curb what we say, when we agree not to say what we think in deference to fascist behaviour.

The struggle for democracy, for human rights, for freedom of expression is never truly won. All that changes are the conditions in which that struggle takes place. For our own sake and for the sake of our children, if we choose to live here, it is a struggle that we are obliged to engage in.



LitNet: 25 April 2006

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