Life is full of simple choices
2005-07-20 11:56
Chris Roper
Life is full of simple choices, and complicated ways to avoid making them. Take the current furore about Dr Pink in Somerset West, and his cultural right to kill a cow.
The choice is simple. Do you like cows more than you like black people? And this isn't only a question for white people - if you're black, you'll have to ask yourself the same thing.
Oh, I know what you're thinking. Surely it's more complicated than that? Can't we achieve a happy compromise, where we satisfy the needs of animal lovers and animists alike?
No, you can't. Dr Pink wants to kill a cow, and hear it bellow in pain. It's his religious belief, and that's that.
The same thing is happening all over the country, all the time. We're ignoring that, mostly. Just because Dr Pink lives in a pink marshmallow, animal lovers are paying attention to him.
So you're going to have to choose. I'm going to take the side of black people (and the odd white animist) being allowed to practise their religion.
As a Capetonian, I don't know any cows, so I don't feel any particular need to protect them. I know what many of you will be thinking at this point: if he's from Cape Town, he probably doesn't know any black people either. Pah. You're all just jealous of our ocean.
For effect, I've pared down the debate to a ridiculous, and insulting, essence. (I know it's insulting, so don't mail me to point that out.) Let's do the same thing with the other cultural clashes that are enlivening South African society this week.
Do you like Hindus?
If you're in Durban, you'll have to make this simple choice: do you like South African school uniforms, or do you like Hindus? Do you choose to perpetuate the strict uniform code of a government school, or do you choose the right of a Hindu girl to wear a nose stud?
You'd think this would be an easier choice. After all, nobody's bellowing in pain, unless the nose piercing goes horribly wrong. However, Hindus have been piercing their noses for around 400 years, so presumably they know what they're doing by now.
But it's not an easier choice for most people. All these issues stand in for larger issues, so people who object to nose studs are also objecting to many other things that are eroding whatever social beliefs they hold.
This is the story. 15-year-old Sunali Pillay wants to wear a nose stud to school. The Durban Girl's High School says no, and is considering disciplinary action.
According to news reports, Pillay's mother says that "the school had declared the stud a violation of its uniform code and had ordered her daughter to remove it". She's approached the Durban equality court to fight what she terms "unfair discrimination".
The Gods
As someone who isn't religious, I find it difficult to understand why the gods - using the term loosely - seem to find it cute when animals get sacrificed and die in pain, or why they would think it necessary for someone to have an extra hole in their nose, or why they would think it vitally important that priests don't marry.
Surely the gods would want MORE priests? Isn't it a little self-defeating if they aren't allowed to breed?
But I'm sure there are sound theological reasons for all that, so I have no problem with it. I DO have a problem when people are told they aren't allowed to follow their religious precepts.
Funnily enough, it's mostly other religious people who are doing the telling. Often with a Stealth bomber, or if they're poor, a more cost-effective suicide bomber.
Another simple choice, if you're in the department of correctional services. Do you choose the uniform dress code of the department, or do you choose the right of Muslim women to wear headscarfs?
According to the Iranian Quran News Agency, the department has suspended Fairouz Adams, a Muslim social worker at the Worcester Prison, for the second time, for wearing a headscarf and not tucking her shirt in.
Apparently, it's vitally important to the safety of staff that they tuck their shirt in. The entire edifice of western civilisation depends on it.
Some of these issues seem trivial. Why shouldn't a school kid be able to wear a nose stud? What possible difference could it make to her education? Will her brain leak out?
On the other hand, despite my four hamburgers a week habit, I do find it disturbing that animals get sacrificed. And if we're talking cultural beliefs like clitoridectomy, then we're really getting into territory where it's difficult to defend freedom of cultural expression. But can't we get the silly things out of the way, at least?
Chris Roper recommends the cheeseburgers at Royale in Long St, Cape Town.
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See Chris's previous columns on his blog The World
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