It's been a nauseating year

South Africans are an intolerant bunch of people who often look down on others and themselves. Take the stupid political rally that the welcome of hero Caster Semenya was turned into by Julius Malema earlier this year — only to find that our own Pinocchio Leornard Chuene was the fool making us all look like lunatics swearing at the world when the key culprit was in our midst.

Take the stupid outrage about a gay kiss on the television soapy Generations recently. What could possibly make people believe that such crass intolerance is acceptable boggles the mind. This year has been particularly nauseating. To add to the injury you had a group of Anglican clerics jumping on the bandwagon. Oh, the sheer banality of it all. These are people who are supposed to be setting a moral example about how we must follow the tolerant ways of the Christ these high-ups are supposed to follow. It really is sickening to the stomach.

You would swear that some were absent during the apartheid years when people were considered to be sub-human because of the colour of their skin. So how on earth do the same group of people who had the entire world declare apartheid a sin against humanity begin to turn against each other and find reasons to categorise each other.

Maybe the race issue was so overwhelming that people ignored other kinds of silliness that goes on in the name of religion, culture and ethnicity. To add insult to injury, you now have a radio personality thinking its OK to insult the dead — something that goes against African culture to the core. Of course, there is freedom of expression and there is also freedom for us to say of what is expressed: This is crass.

Let’s look at religious intolerance. Here the born-again or more specifically the charismatic Christians, take the cake. Apparently some of these hypocrites claim that if you are in their fold you cannot consort with people from other churches. The brothers there spent time “being shown visions about who to fall in love with”. This is crass and needs to be condemned. Credit must go to those in those ranks who condemn this opportunism. Falling in love must simply be natural regardless of religious persuasion. The fact that we have cross-religious couples means that it must have nothing to do with what amounts to simple socialisation. No one is born Christian — they are baptised and then confirmed into that faith if they are still interested by the time they are old enough to make up their minds.

The Catholics follow a close second. Apparently when you are in a Catholic church and from another denomination you cannot share in the Communion (Selalelo/Eucharist) because you are not holy enough. There is no similar restriction when it comes to the time of offerings where you must take out your wallet … they don’t say “Please don’t give us your dirty money because you are not Catholic”. It really is pure hypocrisy. The only reason I did not join the Catholic church was because of a priest (may his soul rest in peace) who conducted my religious studies class at high school, told me that if I am not Catholic I will, well, “go to hell”. Not figuratively at all … leave your church or frankly, burn in hell. With these kind of angels I opted out of their kind of heaven.

I don’t have to tell you about the culture of some Muslims to oppress their own women in the name of modesty. The women are forced to cover themselves and are not allowed to speak in certain forums — something that is diametrically opposed to our Constitution. This reminds me of the lunatic segregation by the Anglican church sometime ago banning women from becoming priests. To their credit and under pressure from all sensible people, they threw this out. Sadly, there are still parts of the church in the United States and in Europe that have resisted these progressive moves until now. I hope history makes these backward people hang their heads in shame.

Then you have polygamy, both informal and informal in our country. The less said about this the better. Culture here is exchanged from religion as the blunt instrument to oppress women. Leaders at the highest echelons of our political spectrum say disparaging things about women and get away with it. Organisations like the ANC Women’s League which are supposed to be at the forefront of these struggles for women’s emancipation are now part of the silence allowing people like Malema to state that women who claim to be raped have called for it and probably enjoyed it. Where is the voice of the women who marched in 1955? Are they to be found in what has been dismissed as Mickey Mouse NGO’s, who dare to go to court to stand up for our women?

Now, priests who are gay cannot preach the gospel, according to some Anglicans. Now men cannot kiss on television because it will offend the sensibilities of the public. Instead of educating viewers, the SABC runs a big disclaimer warning sensitive viewers. They do not run such disclaimers when politicians lie to the public every day.

Go figure.