The limits of free speech in South Africa, part 2

What a bizarre country we live in.

Following my remarks on Twitter on Monday evening about Standard Bank economist Chris Hart and freedom of speech and my subsequent blog post here on Medium (which I encourage you to read), Jimmy Manyi has laid crimen injuria charges against me and warned me rather ominously: “The police are coming for you.”

According to a report in the Sowetan, Manyi laid the charges against myself and Hart.

Charges were also filed against a number of other people, where I believe such charges are quite justified. They include Penny Sparrow, the real estate agent who posted highly objectionable and racist material on Facebook and who has been rightfully condemned universally for her views.

I have no problem with crimen injuria charges being brought against her and her ilk. But by targeting me, Manyi is going after an innocent person. I think the public record demonstrates that. Manyi has repeatedly unfairly accused me of racism, a charge I reject out of hand and regard as highly defamatory. I suspect a political motivation.

I don’t know what the specific charges are that have been brought against me as I haven’t yet seen the charge sheet, but they appear to be two controversial tweets I published on Monday. In the first, I voiced the opinion that Standard Bank’s decision to suspend Hart was wrong and that he was being subjected to a “public lynching”. I stand by that tweet. In my second tweet, I said I was perturbed by calls for racist speech to be outlawed and said that even “racist idiots like Penny Sparrow have a right to free speech in a democracy”. I now know that view was ill informed. More on that later in this post.

First, let me deal with the tweet about Chris Hart. I won’t repeat the views I expounded in my previous post on Medium, but I once again would like to state that I do not believe that Hart — who I have not met and who I don’t know other than through the media — is in any shape or form a racist. Many people I respect, including several senior journalists, have also sprung to his defence. The tweet he sent that led to the outrage may have been poorly written, but I do not believe that it was motivated by racism. Hart seems to me to an intelligent man and someone who loves his country and who is frustrated about the direction it is headed in.

However, I need to revisit my second tweet, the one about free speech, not because what I tweeted was in any way racist, as Manyi asserts, but because it was insensitive.

First some background. I thoroughly detest censorship. I grew up in a liberal household hating the National Party government and what it stood for. I remember the dark days of apartheid when the news was heavily censored and getting access to information difficult. I hadn’t started my career yet, but there were many brave journalists in that era who paid dearly — sometimes with their own livelihoods and sometimes even with their own blood — in pursuit of the truth. I am currently reading John Matisonn’s excellent book “God, Spies and Lies”, in which he provides fascinating insights into some of the pioneering journalists of that era who we all owe a debt of gratitude to. I highly recommend reading it. It was a terrible time in our history and we’re still suffering the effects of an evil system of institutionalised racism today. It has broken our society in terrible ways.

It was in the context of my love of liberty and my desire never to go back to a society like that one that led me to tweet what I did. I have been proved wrong.

There are necessary limits to freedom of speech. As Pierre de Vos argued so well on his website on Tuesday, there has to be a line drawn in the sand. And that’s especially true in a society like South Africa’s where the scars of racism run deep. Racist abuse oversteps that line every time.

Before Monday, I would have drawn the line at simply outlawing hate speech that specifically incited violence. But I’ve been convinced by De Vos’s column and by other commentators, as well as through feedback from people who’ve interacted with me on Twitter, including Katy Katapodis of Eyewitness News, that I was wrong to take that position. Penny Sparrow’s free speech rights are curtailed when she spews racist vitriol. Particularly in a country with a history like ours, I have been convinced that some limits are, in fact, needed. I apologise to anyone who was offended by my tweet, which I will delete. Manyi would like people to believe my tweet was motivated by racism. It was not.

The constitution actually sets it out well when it says that the right to freedom of expression “does not extend to … the advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes incitement to create harm”. That’s fair.

Lastly, I am appalled at how racially charged South Africa has become in the recent past. Some of the insults and crass racism flying across social media make my skin crawl. I think it’s partly a product of the trouble South Africa is in — the lack of jobs, the anemic economic growth, the lack of hope. We’re turning on each other. It’s terrible to watch.

I think it’s important that cool heads prevail. I hope to contribute my part.