The Question of Race. Moves to make ‘hate speech’ a crime?
by Steuart Pennington
We have recently been given more space to contribute to the debate of what is and what isn’t racism and/or hate speech. Radio talk shows have reduced this highly difficult topic into puerile notions of ‘post-colonisation, de-colonisation, getting to know each other’ etc as an Afriforum spokesperson battles it out with some neoliberal do-gooder moderated by an ill-informed talk show host.
So, where to start? Is the “race question/hate speech” in South Africa just a black/white thing? When someone is accused of playing the race card or of hate speech are they contrasting blacks and whites only? Is someone who is accused of being “racist” or engaging in ‘hate speech’ always just white? Is race a social construct or is it a consequence of the fact that humanity is still evolving and that, despite our differences, we are STILL finding ways of getting to know each other?
Is there a difference between racism, discrimination, prejudice, and/or bias?
This is such a tricky and contentious issue in our country. I read the contributions of various authors often, and their views differ. Below are some of these views. I hope they are of interest and add value to the debate.
Differing Departure Points
It seems the answer to these questions depend on whether you have a sociological, historical or bio-geographical departure point when it comes to race and racism.
Nicholas Wade, in the Spectator (17 May 2014) “The genome of history”, contrasts the views of social scientists – who proclaim that race is a social, not a biological construct – with that of historians – who argue that races differ only in culture – with that of biological scientists who argue that studies of the human genome prove that human evolution has been extensive, recent and regional – (read tribal).
“Biological research reveals that no less than 14% of the human genome has changed under recent evolutionary pressure. Most of these signals of natural selection date from 30 000 to 5 000 years ago, just an eye-blink in evolution’s three-billion-year timescale,” Wade points out.
“Evolution does not stop” he proclaims. “There no reason to suppose human evolution ground to a halt at some decent interval before the present, as historians and social scientists habitually assume.”
“Or?” he questions, “Is there an argument to suggest that Africans, East Asians and Caucasians, evolving independently, adapted to their own set of regional challenges?”
“Indeed, it is hard to see anything in the human genome that would support any notion of racism,” says Wade, “but our growing knowledge of genetics does allow us to identify cultural and biological differences as a result of the evolutionary process of natural selection”.
“Edward Wilson was pilloried for suggesting in his 1975 book, “Sociobiology” that many human social behaviours might have an evolutionary basis. But research has proved him correct.”
“With human beings, evolution seems to have followed a particular strategy; keep the body as is, but vary social behaviour to let people exploit new niches”.
Jonathan Haidt, an American sociologist in a recent TED talk explains, “We have tribal origins, and have evolved tribally, this is not a bad thing and has, in many respects, translated into positive behaviours, playing sport against each other for example, 235 National flags, but –there is a negative side – war still happens on the basis of ‘tribal’ ideology.
Different Trajectories?
“Humans are still a single species, but at least three evolutionary changes in social structure seem evident:”
- The first is the transition from foraging to settled life.
- The second is the transition from tribalism to nation states – sometimes imposed.
- The third from agrarian to modern economies, the Industrial Revolution.
“China was the first state to replace tribalism, the unification in 221 BC marked the emergence of the first modern nationalist state, Europeans took another 1 000 years to catch up, notably when the King of the Franks became King of France. Other populations, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, are in the throes of achieving this transition. Likewise the Industrial Revolution, which started in England was able “to transform the violent peasant population of the 1200’s into the disciplined workforce of 1800’s”.
“In many respects the evolution of the different population groups in the world has largely been in parallel, but on slightly different timescales, probably because of demographic and bio-geographical factors.
“Clearly no society is intrinsically superior to any other, but inevitably each has periods of greater relative success.
Geography, Institutions and Individuals
“So,” asks Wade, “Why are some countries rich and others persistently poor? Johan Rupert in the recent FM Business awards explains it simply, “they made different choices”.
Capital and information flow fairly freely, so what is it that prevents poor countries from taking out a loan, copying what rich countries do, and becoming rich and peaceful?”
“The answers to such questions may lie in a hitherto unexamined possibility, that human social nature has been shaped by different social trajectories and that human groups therefore differ slightly in their social behaviour and in the social institutions that depend on that behaviour, variations in which can lead to very different kinds of society.
Significant human differences lie at this level, not at the level of individuals. This explains why people, unlike institutions, can easily migrate from one society to another.
Jared Dymond, in his book, “Guns, Germs and Steel” supports this contention; “Europe’s colonisation of Africa has nothing to do with differences between European and African peoples themselves, as racists will have it. Rather, it was due to accidents of geography and biogeography – in particular, to the continents’ different areas, axes, and suites of wild plant and animal species. That is the different historical trajectories of Africa and Europe stem ultimately from differences in real estate.”
“Continents differ in innumerable environmental features affecting the trajectories of human societies. People are not different, the environments in which they have evolved are different.
Malcolm Gladwell in his book, “Outliers” further concurs as he describes the concept of cultural legacies as “powerful forces, with deep roots and long lives. Cultural legacies persist, generation after generation, virtually intact, and they play such a role in directing attitudes and behaviour that we cannot make sense of our world without them.”
Alec Hogg refers to ‘Tree’ people and ‘Boat’ people. Tree people like sameness, insularity, nationalism. ‘Boat’ people like diversity, globalness, liberalism.
The recent Trump vs Clinton choice and Brexit choice are good examples of the cultural legacy of ‘Tree’ people rising in a world becoming more fearful of the consequences of globalism/immigration/diversity.
South Africa
So as we consider our own racial ‘issues’ in South Africa, can we conclude that we as individuals do not differ simply because we are people of a different race, and that expression of our individual differences can never be blamed on race – and that hate speech is a function of negative stereotyping, of Tree people fearfulness, not race.
I think we can – differing with each other, and from each other, is not “racist” and those who argue it is are quite simply wrong. But, it may be cultural. As Haidt explains, “We all have prejudices, we live in different video games, we like being with people who are culturally like us with similar backgrounds and interests – this natural phenomenon can and does transgress race.
So, race may be a troublesome inheritance, but it is better to explore and understand its bearing on human nature and history than to pretend for reasons of political convenience and correctness that different social trajectories don’t exist.
In our history when the Nguni tribes came into contact with the Bushmen they either enslaved or exterminated those on a ‘different social trajectory’, likewise when the British encountered the Xhosa, when the Boers encountered the British, when the Boers encountered the Nguni. World history is littered with similar examples: Inuit and European; Aborigine and European, Arab and African, Barbarian and Roman. When people on different social trajectories collided there was inevitably conflict – radical conflict. It was mostly a collision of culture – not of race.
What does that mean for us? It means we need to understand whether we are debating race in the context of a sociological, historical or bio-geographical perspective. To do this we need to:
- understand the recent and regional environments within which we, of different races and cultures, have evolved and how that has impacted our cultural character;
- understand what the collision of these cultures have meant for our national character and our trajectory as a society;
- understand what social institutions we need to develop to ensure that our joint and different trajectories become shared, supported and sustainable.
These are the ingredients of reconciliation as opposed to a racial debate, or legislation governing hate speech, or a history lesson regarding our many challenges. Reconciliation is about understanding why we are colliding and then building an institutional framework – we started quite well with our constitution – in which we can understand, trust and co-habit with a shared vision of building a country in which we are truly “united in our diversity and determined to improve the quality of life of all citizens”, despite our apparent differences and historically different trajectories.
We will never do that if we continue to play the race card when it is convenient, when we disagree, or when we have nothing else but ‘hate’ speech.
Steuart Pennington is CEO of www.sagoodnews.co.za and author of SOUTH AFRICA @ 20: For Better or for Worse? (2013)
