/ 9 August 2009

Dots, dashes and hotnots

Hell, it appears, hath no fury, like a rugby player slandered.

Here we were thinking that with all that testosterone, shoving, sweat and clutching at balls (of the oval kind) the game itself is fertile ground for a fight.

But, if recent events at the Wanderers Rugby Club in Johannesburg are anything to go by, what caused the latest beefcake bust-up was a word. A few of them, in fact. Like hotnot and boesman. And kaffir (gasp!).

Yes, that dreaded word from antiquity, once heard only in the domain of deserts, sherbet and men with dresses.

Until the Dutchmen came along and gave it some of its more unsavoury local connotations, it was the word (as we have heard ad nauseum) used by the Muslim faithful to describe the non-believers.

Until the advent of democratic constitutions, equality courts and human rights commissions in South Africa, anyone was free to play around with the word, including blacks.

Just ask Arthur Mafokate. Now it’s going as ‘k dot-dot-dash” or the ‘K-word” in more fashionable circles.

Besides the fact that it requires extra caution in the subbing department, the whole enterprise appears more than slightly ridiculous — and contradictory.

That old guardian of moral values, the press, would otherwise have no problem quoting verbatim if someone referred to a coon, a nigger, a bitch or
a yid — but, hey, the ‘K-word” is the ultimate taboo.

Just look at the Wanderers Rugby Club incident, where a group of players came to blows. It was swiftly labelled a racial assault because the white players allegedly called the coloured team a bunch of hotnots. How it was reported, was telling.

One newspaper, with a predominantly Afrikaans readership, chose the dot-dot-dash approach. But others splashed the word hotnot in bold, even minus italics.

Of course, some coloureds don’t exactly like the word. As a fellow brown person explained to me, he draws the line at being referred to as a hotnot. ‘As for being called a boesman, I don’t mind because it’s an actual word, it’s even in the woordeboek (dictionary).”

Various theories abound about the origin of the word. Some say it was the name given by the first Dutch settlers to the native people they encountered in the Cape of Good Hope.

Whatever it meant then, there’s only one thing it means now. And it involves missing front teeth, a tik pipe and that man or woman dik gesuip (drunk) at the kerb.

Why, then, is a word implying such a crude racial stereotype acceptable for use where it can be read by the sweet children, but not others?

One hears that ‘the K-word” is now illegal and forbidden to be used unless in a particular context. Such as in ‘a drama for adults”.

Which is what the SABC recently found out, to its detriment, after one of its radio stations, 5fm, played Arthur Mafokate’s notorious song, Kaffir, in its ‘Cheese of the Day” slot.

A trio of sensitive listeners got the public broadcaster hauled before the Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCCSA) after being shaken to the core by the song’s use of ‘the K-word”. ‘It is with shock and utter disbelieve [sic]” that one listener tuned in to 5FM to be greeted with the offensive word.

The broadcasting watchdog ruled that use of the word was unacceptable on airwaves ‘during times when children may be exposed to it”. Though our Constitution guarantees freedom of expression, this excludes ‘advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm”.

Coupled with certain provisions of the Equality Act, using a racial slur (no matter how well meaning) could have you dragged before the Equality Court and (shiver me timbers) forced to apologise —

One understands the need for such legislation in a pluralist society. But it soon becomes impossible to manage. One man’s hate speech is another man’s endearment. For example, if Snoop Dog was hanging at a corner in Westbury with his crew, he’d not be out of place to motion one of the locals over with a shout of ‘Hey, my nigga .Wassup?”

And it goes without saying that there is a big difference between a racial slur at a rugby match and the state giving hate speech the oxygen of publicity.

The rise of Nazi Germany and the Rwandan genocide provide grim historical lessons about what happens when race hatred gets on the airwaves.

A political movement based on ethnic or racial hatred of ‘the other” must of course be legislated against. But perhaps we have become too precious. A word like hotnot says more about who utters it than about who is on the receiving end. Offensive? Maybe. Illegal? Ridiculous.