Morality and Ethics - Who is to set the standards?
I took the enclosed article home and expected my personal views be confirmed. Well, partly this was true. But I would never dare to compare the decisions made by the Media Council in Uganda with those of the Nazi regime. This is way to drastic and inappropriate. There are other cruelties and inhumanities, which might (or should) be compared with the worst inhumanity.
Although I would like to argue that censorship and exclusion by governments are generally unacceptable, I have to admit that this is not well thought through. What about child pornography (there are some cases in Germany right now)? What about the Playboy (just imported one into Uganda)? Where is the line to be drawn? What about right-wing extremists and left-wing extremists or royalists? Who shall have the freedom of speech or to right to be elected?
What about different sexual preferences? What is normal? Who is to decide on what is good and what is bad/evil (ethics)? Who is in the position to judge the morality? I doubt whether a media council or a respective ministry is the appropriate institution to do that.
The article:
"Inside Politics Inside Parliament Mar 30 - Apr 5, 2005 Somebody save "us from the hypocrites behind the Media Council By Badru D. Mulumba The morning the Media Council banned the Vagina Monologues play, I sent an SMS to Radio Sanyu host Seanice Kacungira.
Her co-host, James Onen was close to pronouncing the Media Council Special Person of day.I said, "This is one issue on which you can't be on the other side. It is a return of state censorship. Who knows, soon they censor your show.
“The Nazi came after the Jews, he said, 'after all I am not Jew’. They came after other races, he said ‘after all I am not one’. Then, they came after him and there was no body to help. Moral is, never sit on the fence.
"I was paraphrasing arguably the greatest moral lesson of the past century, if not of all times - a poem Germany pastor Friedrich Gustav Emil Niemoller, survivor of Adolf Hitler's death camps composed.
Niemoller (1892-1984), a submarine captain during World War I before becoming a pastor, backed Hitler's ascendancy to power in 1933 under popular mandate. Nazis detained him July 1937 for underhand attacks at the state. A special court martial sentenced him to eight months in prison. Re-arrested by Germany's secret police, Gestapo, upon his prison release, Niemoller narrowly survived execution in concentration camps, stepping out to freedom when Germany fell in 1945. After the V-Monologues were banned, East Africa TV faces closure over "inappropriate programming" and "sexually suggestive dances".
I tried hard to decipher the inappropriate scenes on EATV and concluded either I am blind or the pornscenes are coded and I couldn't break the code. A so-called Coalition for Morality, Ethics and Integrity writes to the Minister. The following day, the Minister directs the Media Council to take action. That same day, government's censorship arm writes to the TV threatening to withdraw the license. Familiar tale?
Significantly, after he made sure the Media Council banned the Vagina Monologues, Information Minister Dr. Nsaba Buturo went further to attack The New Vision over the same crime he now accuses EATV of.
Soon after, Makerere University Vice Chancellor Livingstone Luboobi, led a largely low-key demonstration, not just against what he called pornography, but also the internet.
A small vocal group of moralists are holding the nation sway. Trouble is they wield immense power. Which is why, their perverse xenophobia is moving from merely disgusting to very scary. Scary because such xenophobia is usually the harbinger to total break down of states.
Look at Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe only discovered his anti-gay passion when his regime faced collapse. And in Germany, in 1933, as Nazis banned a gay center and 20,000 books --- which they said corrupted morals -- the church fully backed them. Soon, the Nazis were sterilising the mental patients, executing insane people, criminals, the terminally ill, the blacks and the Jews. And when they were done, they came after the Church, censoring its sermons and replacing unwanted priests with those beholden to Nazism. And in Uganda? Bishop Balaggadde Ssekadde reportedly remarked: "[Government] should go ahead and condemn all those imported cultures that are entering our society.
"When Media Council turns its teeth on him - or his church - there will be no EATV to back him up. By the time, Pastor Niemoller was prisoner, Hitler who had started out as a gay-bashing president had progressed to playing God, replacing Church replica with his own idols and photographs.
Hitler is 60 years gone, but, Uganda's tiny, paranoid, yet powerful mob could soon be playing God, the way he did. Who knows, next time, the Media Council could say WBS programmes are corrupting young people. But of course the real reason might be that it is not airing as much state propaganda as state TV.
Then, they could probably ban some magazines in newspapers; high heels, hot pants, and lip gloss because it draws' men's attention to ladies' lips; and internet and e-mail because regime opponents use it to abuse the President.
Internet might be blamed for spreading evil. But it is probably the last century's best innovation. It has changed the world much more than was thought possible. Zimbabwean exiles can now write a newspaper from outside their country. Kenyans were able to read internet versions of Ngugi wa Thiongo's books, which Moi had banned. Internet has changed a lot. Which is possibly why, dictators amongst us are scared stiff. Their end is nigh - and they know it. Trouble is that those dictators will stay a while - as they try to make life as miserable as possible.
The problem is most of us who are not willing to see the danger the small dictators amongst us pose.
Kenya's Roads and Public Works minister Raila Odinga brings this lesson home in his lecture on Political Party Leadership at the International Republican Institute seminar this month. First, a man prepared a trap, Raila said. Seeing the trap, the Rat ran and asked the chicken to help remove it. The chicken replied, "the trap is not for me". The goat, and cow were equally not concerned.
The trap grabbed a snake. The man thought the trap had grabbed a rat. When he went to check, he found a snake. It bit him. He died. People came to keep vigil. The chicken was slaughtered for breakfast. By midday, the numbers swelled; the goat was slaughtered. On burial day, the cow was slaughtered. Only the rat survived. "I want you people to remove the trap before it catches up with you." Lesson one: some times the trap gets the person who sets it.
Lesson two: don't seat on the fence when you see a trap some one else"
badru.mulumba@gmail.com
Published on 4th Arpil 2005 in The New Vision
Source
Although I would like to argue that censorship and exclusion by governments are generally unacceptable, I have to admit that this is not well thought through. What about child pornography (there are some cases in Germany right now)? What about the Playboy (just imported one into Uganda)? Where is the line to be drawn? What about right-wing extremists and left-wing extremists or royalists? Who shall have the freedom of speech or to right to be elected?
What about different sexual preferences? What is normal? Who is to decide on what is good and what is bad/evil (ethics)? Who is in the position to judge the morality? I doubt whether a media council or a respective ministry is the appropriate institution to do that.
The article:
"Inside Politics Inside Parliament Mar 30 - Apr 5, 2005 Somebody save "us from the hypocrites behind the Media Council By Badru D. Mulumba The morning the Media Council banned the Vagina Monologues play, I sent an SMS to Radio Sanyu host Seanice Kacungira.
Her co-host, James Onen was close to pronouncing the Media Council Special Person of day.I said, "This is one issue on which you can't be on the other side. It is a return of state censorship. Who knows, soon they censor your show.
“The Nazi came after the Jews, he said, 'after all I am not Jew’. They came after other races, he said ‘after all I am not one’. Then, they came after him and there was no body to help. Moral is, never sit on the fence.
"I was paraphrasing arguably the greatest moral lesson of the past century, if not of all times - a poem Germany pastor Friedrich Gustav Emil Niemoller, survivor of Adolf Hitler's death camps composed.
Niemoller (1892-1984), a submarine captain during World War I before becoming a pastor, backed Hitler's ascendancy to power in 1933 under popular mandate. Nazis detained him July 1937 for underhand attacks at the state. A special court martial sentenced him to eight months in prison. Re-arrested by Germany's secret police, Gestapo, upon his prison release, Niemoller narrowly survived execution in concentration camps, stepping out to freedom when Germany fell in 1945. After the V-Monologues were banned, East Africa TV faces closure over "inappropriate programming" and "sexually suggestive dances".
I tried hard to decipher the inappropriate scenes on EATV and concluded either I am blind or the pornscenes are coded and I couldn't break the code. A so-called Coalition for Morality, Ethics and Integrity writes to the Minister. The following day, the Minister directs the Media Council to take action. That same day, government's censorship arm writes to the TV threatening to withdraw the license. Familiar tale?
Significantly, after he made sure the Media Council banned the Vagina Monologues, Information Minister Dr. Nsaba Buturo went further to attack The New Vision over the same crime he now accuses EATV of.
Soon after, Makerere University Vice Chancellor Livingstone Luboobi, led a largely low-key demonstration, not just against what he called pornography, but also the internet.
A small vocal group of moralists are holding the nation sway. Trouble is they wield immense power. Which is why, their perverse xenophobia is moving from merely disgusting to very scary. Scary because such xenophobia is usually the harbinger to total break down of states.
Look at Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe only discovered his anti-gay passion when his regime faced collapse. And in Germany, in 1933, as Nazis banned a gay center and 20,000 books --- which they said corrupted morals -- the church fully backed them. Soon, the Nazis were sterilising the mental patients, executing insane people, criminals, the terminally ill, the blacks and the Jews. And when they were done, they came after the Church, censoring its sermons and replacing unwanted priests with those beholden to Nazism. And in Uganda? Bishop Balaggadde Ssekadde reportedly remarked: "[Government] should go ahead and condemn all those imported cultures that are entering our society.
"When Media Council turns its teeth on him - or his church - there will be no EATV to back him up. By the time, Pastor Niemoller was prisoner, Hitler who had started out as a gay-bashing president had progressed to playing God, replacing Church replica with his own idols and photographs.
Hitler is 60 years gone, but, Uganda's tiny, paranoid, yet powerful mob could soon be playing God, the way he did. Who knows, next time, the Media Council could say WBS programmes are corrupting young people. But of course the real reason might be that it is not airing as much state propaganda as state TV.
Then, they could probably ban some magazines in newspapers; high heels, hot pants, and lip gloss because it draws' men's attention to ladies' lips; and internet and e-mail because regime opponents use it to abuse the President.
Internet might be blamed for spreading evil. But it is probably the last century's best innovation. It has changed the world much more than was thought possible. Zimbabwean exiles can now write a newspaper from outside their country. Kenyans were able to read internet versions of Ngugi wa Thiongo's books, which Moi had banned. Internet has changed a lot. Which is possibly why, dictators amongst us are scared stiff. Their end is nigh - and they know it. Trouble is that those dictators will stay a while - as they try to make life as miserable as possible.
The problem is most of us who are not willing to see the danger the small dictators amongst us pose.
Kenya's Roads and Public Works minister Raila Odinga brings this lesson home in his lecture on Political Party Leadership at the International Republican Institute seminar this month. First, a man prepared a trap, Raila said. Seeing the trap, the Rat ran and asked the chicken to help remove it. The chicken replied, "the trap is not for me". The goat, and cow were equally not concerned.
The trap grabbed a snake. The man thought the trap had grabbed a rat. When he went to check, he found a snake. It bit him. He died. People came to keep vigil. The chicken was slaughtered for breakfast. By midday, the numbers swelled; the goat was slaughtered. On burial day, the cow was slaughtered. Only the rat survived. "I want you people to remove the trap before it catches up with you." Lesson one: some times the trap gets the person who sets it.
Lesson two: don't seat on the fence when you see a trap some one else"
badru.mulumba@gmail.com
Published on 4th Arpil 2005 in The New Vision
Source
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