Moral Panics – Active Voice

Social Protests vs Moral Panics

Clovis, Jamaica Observer editorial cartoon, June 19, 2010 — Clovis, Jamaica Observer editorial cartoon, June 19, 2014. A depiction of the so-called ‘hijacking’ of morality by Jamaicans for Justice and their sex education curriculum for institutionalized children. See my previous post Sly Perfidy for more information on this.

The following was first published on my blog at Economic and Political Weekly, an Indian magazine of ‘independent scholarship and critical inquiry’.

The question of what arouses outrage or ‘moral panics’ in societies is a fascinating one. In Jamaica members of a powerful Evangelical Christian fundamentalist lobby group have decided to rally their troops in a crusade against the University of the West Indies because the contract of one of their members as head of an organization named CHART, the Caribbean HIV/AIDS Regional Training Network, has been terminated. The head of this unit, retired Professor Brendan Bain, who happens to be a Christian fundamentalist, had given expert testimony on behalf of churches moving to retain the buggery law in Belize.

Because this action was perceived to be antithetical to the mission statement of CHART–”to continually strengthen the capacity of national healthcare personnel and systems to provide access to quality HIV & AIDS prevention, care, treatment, and support services for all Caribbean people” international stakeholders crucial to funding CHART asked that Professor Bain’s contract be terminated and after lengthy consultations the University complied. It was felt that by arguing that buggery laws be retained (when there is medical consensus internationally that such laws impede the successful treatment and management of HIV/AIDS) Professor Bain had lost the confidence of CHART’s stakeholders.

Bain’s supporters have turned the situation into a circus about freedom of speech, convening several times a week, dressed in black, with taped mouths, outside the regional headquarters of the University to protest his dismissal. Their contention? That Bain should have been free to give expert evidence based on his ‘research’ and that by rescinding his contract the University had bowed to the dictates of an internationally constituted ‘gay agenda’.

In India in the last two years much outrage has been expressed at the alarming frequency and ferocity with which women are raped. The government has reacted by strengthening the legal penalties for rape. The straw that broke the camel’s back seems to have been the gang-rape and subsequent death of young Jyoti Singh in December 2012. Since then an avalanche of rapes has been reported and dwelt on, the most recent being the callous rape-killings of two lower caste women in Budaun, UP by men of a politically powerful though marginally higher caste. Read at face value the Budaun case highlights the persistence of caste-sanctioned violence in contemporary India despite the existence of strong legislation proscribing such behaviour.

The spectacularity of the violence done to the young women–hanging their violated bodies in a public square for all to see–suggests that a strong signal was being sent by the perpetrators. Was this a lynching? What had the girls or the communities they came from done to provoke this? Considering the extremely high incidence of reported rape cases recorded in recent years should one label the dominant culture a rape culture? Does this mean Indian culture is synonymous with rape culture? Since the caste system is an integral part of hegemonic Hindu culture and higher castes seem to be signaling their right to rape lower-caste women in instances like this, does that make Hindu culture itself complicit with rape culture?

And what exactly is rape culture for that matter? A concept developed by feminists in the 70s, rape culture refers to cultures that normalize, excuse, turn a blind eye to or even condone the rape of women. In contrast male rape, especially by other men, is not viewed as casually in such societies. Certainly the comments made by various high level politicians, policemen and priests in India regarding cases of female rape suggest that there is virtually a patriarchal consensus that the rape of women should not be a justiciable crime. Fortunately the founders of the Indian constitution thought otherwise providing legal recourse to rape victims although the enforcement of such laws has proved to be difficult in a culture inclined not to view unconsensual sex as a crime.

To me these two conjunctures illustrate the difference between social outrage and moral panics. The latter sums up the Jamaican situation while the Indian protests are symptomatic of outrage generated by a genuine problem–that of the vulnerability of women in patriarchal societies where rape culture prevails.

The quasi-hysterical protests in Jamaica show all the classic signs of a moral panic. According to Charles Krinsky, considered an authority on the phenomenon “A moral panic may be defined as an episode, often triggered by alarming media stories and reinforced by reactive laws and public policy, of exaggerated or misdirected public concern, anxiety, fear, or anger over a perceived threat to social order.”

Whereas in India the demonstrations have been about existing laws that are inadequately policed and enforced, in Jamaica the highly organized protests are indirectly about the repeal of a law–the buggery law–which if actualized would be considered a blow to the self-appointed policing of public morality by evangelical Christians and a major defeat on the part of local interests at the hands of an illusory or imaginary enemy–the so-called globally powerful gay lobby.

The problem with moral panics is that they are seldom about real or actual threats to the social order and they rarely happen in response to much more serious dangers–that of human trafficking, paedophilia or narco-trafficking for instance–all of which pose much greater threats to Jamaican society. There are probably good examples of moral panics in Indian society but the recent escalation in anti-rape protests is not one of them.

The Sly Perfidy of People Who Say They Care…

A look at the moral panic enveloping Jamaica in the wake of Brendan Bain’s dismissal as CHART head.

Clovis, Editorial cartoon, Jamaica Observer June 12, 2014 — This editorial cartoon in the Jamaica Observer of June 12 featuring a schoolboy in a chastity belt responds to the alleged rape of a male jogger that was sensationally reported in a previous issue of the paper. Questions have been raised about the sketchy details available, suggesting the incident might have been staged to fuel the moral panic instigated by the evangelical right in Jamaican society.

Jamaica is in the throes of a full blown moral panic. Three times a week since mid-May demonstrators clad in black have been assembling in front of the University of the West Indies (UWI), praying and carrying placards urging passers-by to honk in support of their campaign. Some have even taped their mouths to signal that this is a freedom of speech issue.

If you guessed that the protest might have something to do with the serious ills threatening this Caribbean society—rampant criminality, paedophilia, human and narco-trafficking, extra-judicial killings by the police and a crippling national debt among others—you would be wrong. The protest is indirectly fuelled by fear that an international ‘gay lobby’ is gaining ground in Jamaica as manifested by the termination of contract of a former UWI Professor from his post as head of the Caribbean HIV/AIDS Regional Training Network or CHART as it is popularly known.

According to the University of the West Indies, CHART CEO Brendan Bain had to be removed from his leadership position after the majority of stakeholders in that organization declared they had no confidence in Bain’s leadership anymore. What prompted the no confidence vote was testimony provided by Bain in a Belize court case, on behalf of a Church group that was arguing for the retention of that country’s buggery laws. This was felt to be in direct contradiction of CHART’s mandate to improve delivery of HIV treatment in the region by reducing the stigma attached to the disease. There is widespread medical consensus based on extensive research that stigmatization and intolerance of men who have sex with men (MSMs) have helped to intensify the spread of the disease as those afflicted with it are afraid to ask for medical help. The Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa which have the highest rates of HIV infection in the world are irrefutable proof of this.

Disregarding these facts Bain’s supporters have turned the situation into a circus about freedom of speech. Their contention? That Bain should have been free to give expert evidence based on his “research” and that by rescinding his contract the university had bowed to the dictates of an internationally constituted “gay agenda”.

Clovis, Jamaica Observer editorial cartoon, June 19, 2014. A depiction of the so-called 'hijacking' of morality by Jamaicans for Justice and their sex education curriculum for institutionalized children. — Clovis, Jamaica Observer editorial cartoon, June 19, 2014. A depiction of the so-called ‘hijacking’ of morality by Jamaicans for Justice and their sex education curriculum for institutionalized children.

Jamaica’s leading newspapers have provided daily fodder to support these protests in the form of provocative anti-gay cartoons, columns and articles. An atmosphere of near hysteria prevails with all the radio stations besieged by callers self-righteously denouncing the ‘gay agenda’ that is about to derail this virtuous, God-loving country. Virtually every day another scandal rocks the nation. A male jogger is raped by a gang of men! A few days later a 16-year old boy who tried to buy a tube of lipstick is nearly lynched by a mob and has to be rescued by the Police. Practically the next day Jamaicans for Justice, the local human rights group, is accused of attempting to “sexually groom” minors in the state’s care by providing them with special text books modified to include information on anal and oral sex.

Improbably a morning radio host on Newstalk 93 claims that the furore over sex education has NOTHING to do with homosexuality or gay rights and everything to do with the rights of poor, vulnerable children. Yet such concern for children’s rights and for the welfare of children in state homes is unprecedented. Was such a declaration made when the sexual violence that is the norm at these homes was exposed in the media a mere two months ago? Are these armchair moralists aware that the majority of children at these farcical ‘places of safety’ are routinely buggered and raped, often by adult staff members? Where was the disproportionate outrage now being displayed over the education of these children when the Jamaica Observer detailed the kind of sexual abuse young boys in one particular home were subject to?

According to a story by Karyl Walker in the Observer of April 9, 2014:

Horror stories of rape and sexual predation have long haunted children’s homes and one former student of the institution told the Observer that he had been raped by older boys many times during his stay there.

“The big boys rape the smaller boys, and when the smaller boys grow up they rape those who are weaker than them. It never stop,” the former ward said.

More recently, on June 9, 2014, Christopher Pryce wrote an anguished letter to the editor about what he called the ‘Boko Haramisation’ Of Jamaica’s children highlighting the alarming rate at which children are disappearing from their family homes.

Did crusading Christians undertake dramatic demonstrations against the government for its abject dereliction of duty in regulating children’s safety in these instances? Why not? Or does it reserve such protests for socially prominent members of high society who are removed from their cushy jobs?

If there is indeed such widespread concern over the education of children why don’t we express the same angst over the rape and buggery of their little bodies? The lessons in horror these children are taught, come not from any textbook smuggled into the curriculum by ‘the gay lobby’ but as a result of the vile predations of those entrusted with their care. Yet such flagrant violations earn no reaction– let alone action–from the innumerable Christian pulpits dotting this island or the churches braying so vigorously on behalf of Bain’s so-called rights.

Our Churches deal exclusively with the spirit such blatantly skewed reactions seem to say. We don’t care if your children are starving or being turned into sex slaves but rest assured we will police what their young minds and spirits are fed with the fervour of Ayatollahs. Your spiritual health is safe in our holy hands. For material well-being apply to your nearest Don and if necessary yield up your pubescent girl children. Remain confident that such children will go to their sexual slaughter with minds unsullied by the truth. Hallelujah! Pass the collection plate!