Last week, as the much-publicized Geert Wilders film Fitna buffered on my computer screen, I remembered a Saturday evening spent sparring about prejudice. The location: my gay cousin’s loft in Wimbledon, London, and my opponent his straight flat mate, a Dutchie whom I’ll call W for anonymity’s sake. I was trying to remember the name of a candy I had come to love in my four months living in Denmark earlier that year. As I described the bulbous chocolate coated sweetie to him, a spark of recognition flashed across his face, “Oh yeah I know that. We call it Negerkuss (Negro kiss).” “You don’t think that’s a bit umm, politically incorrect?” I asked. He frowned like it was the first time anyone had asked him that. And it was. After a short while he retorted, “Sainsbury in London sells Indian tonic water.” Somehow I don’t think it’s the same.
Most people don’t believe they’re prejudiced and it shocks them to realise that the shoe might actually fit. W quickly googled something and proclaimed that the name of the candy had recently been changed to the more neutral Chocolate Kiss. But it doesn’t matter, just like most people still call Myanmar Burma and I call Mumbai Bombay, the old names tend to hang on. In India, many pejorative terms used to describe Muslim minorities are still whispered behind closed doors. In remote villages you and I will never visit, people from our backward classes still have “untouchable” slurred at them.
The same with Allochtoon. Recently I had a promising article read to me from the newspaper Spits which talked about outlawing the use of the word in Holland (http://www.spitsnet.nl/nieuws.php/1/12104/online/Schaf_woord_allochtoon_af.html). I’m afraid that despite these measures, it simply won’t go away. Mr Wilders won’t let it. If prohibited by law, it will just make the transition to street slang. What is more disheartening is that films like Fitna are actually helping to add to the body of labels that already exists.
I’m aware that Holland is a champion of free speech, “He has a right to his opinion,” said W. But I’m afraid this beautiful country is attracting a label of its own—racist. It’s sad that so many have to endure this name calling because of a few right wingers. But just like in kindergarten, it’s catching on surprisingly fast.
We all need a good bout of de-wording to unlearn phrases and adjectives we have come to use without fully realizing their potential to offend. While this sounds like a brilliant plan I have no idea how it might be accomplished. Especially since W let it slip that he had a bag of Negro Kisses stashed in his room. He later looked a bit sheepish. But it made me realise again that labels stick longer than laws.
April 11, 2008 at 11:58 am
Censorship can be a double edged sword. In India, many right wingers
and some feminists, for hugely different reasons demand for censorship in the
media when it comes to women and “provocative” clothing. The
conservatives want censorship as they believe it destroys “traditional” Indian values
and the feminists (not all, just a few misguided ones) think
it “objectifies” the female body. This attitude is not uncommon. Just
recently, when a picture of Anna Kournikova in a bra ad was shown in
class, a few classmates felt that it was sexist.
But what about the other side of the story? Has anybody tried to
understand what the women in such ads actually feel about being in
such ads. Do they do it just for the money? Possibly not. The female
body when moved from private to the public sphere could well provide a
sense of empowerment for some women
Is it so wrong for women to be proud of their bodies? Should they hide
it or be ashamed of it because of the above mentioned concerns? It is
very easy to collapse sex and sexuality and it could well be done to
maintain the status-quo of patriarchal attitudes.
The digression into feminism was simply to question if we can
accomplish anything at all through censorship? As Sulakshana mentions,
if prohibited by law, racist terms just make a transition into”street
slang”, or on the other hand, “political correctness”. There is always a
danger in this leading to the “disempowerment” of some people. For
instance, Sulakshana mentions the label untouchable being thrown at
untouchables in villages. Does that mean in urban areas the upper
class being politically correct with such terms have translated into
actual reforms or benefits for them? Or even if discrimination has
completely disappeared for them here. Casteism can be subtly practiced
and can be just as defeating for lower castes when it is practiced
under the guise of “political correctness.” Mere de-wording will not help, deeper socialization patterns need to be disrupted.
It’s too simplistic to blame the Dutch as being racist simply on the basis
of Wilder’s film. It could be the media in general that is to blame
for flaming fears of terrorism by portraying only one kind of Islam, i.e. fundamentalist Islam. Wilder has happily capitalized on this. There may be legitimate fears such as the one Wilder’s asks towards the end of the film, i.e. if the Muslim world extend the
same courtesy of tolerance towards their western counterparts?
Intolerance exists the world over. It is best not to push it
underground. Instead open debate is the best option in a move towards
change. Wilder’s film Fitna generated a whole range of responses worldwide. Outrage was one that was extremely prominent even amongst the
Dutch population. What are we supposed to make out of this?