To my knowledge, Mr. Uzochukwu’s article has been removed from this site after he made a request to its editor. That, dear reader, is where we are on a slippery slope.

Just before he died in 1543, Nikolaus Kopernikus published a book titled “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium” (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres). Its publication is considered to be a major event in the history of science. What was most significant about the timing of the publication, was that Kopernikus had it published just before he died. And he did so with good reason. Almost as soon as Kopernikus died, Bartolomeo Spina, who was the Catholic Church’s chief censor expressed a desire to stamp out “this heresy”, and as was the culture back then, a few burned bodies turned up. However, Spina died three years after Kopernikus, and his successor, Giovanni Tolosani, preferred to debate his opposition to the theories of Kopernikus. History records that Tolosani lost the argument, as a chap called Galileo would later prove that as Kopernikus had already known, the Earth indeed did (and still does) go around the Sun.

However, we are not here for a science lesson, we are here to discuss the differences in the actions of Spina on the one hand, and Tolosani on the other, and the long term effects such behaviour can have on a society.

You see, Kopernikus’s theories were heretical against the accepted dogma of his age, hence his decision to await until he was almost off of the mortal coil before publishing. Spina, took the dictatorial attitude, and tried to censure and/or crush this opposing view, while Tolosani took the democratic attitude and argued against the new idea. The latter’s path, was what made room for people like Galileo and Isaac Newton to prove Kopernikus right. Tolosani gave them their freedom of expression.

Under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, freedom of expression is recognised in international law giving every human being the right to hold opinions without interference, and that this right gives each individual freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds regardless of frontiers, whether in writing, or in print, or in art, or through any media of his or her choice.

The much vaunted freedom of speech which is critical for democracy to survive, is the political aspect of freedom of expression.

Last week, a writer on this website, Kelechi Uzochukwu wrote an article in which he implied that men are not disciplined enough to control their urges, and as a result all men have “raped something” at one point or the other in their lives. Predictably, the reaction to this piece was loud. For the records, I think that his piece was a whole heap of garbage, but this piece is not about that. A lot of others have laid into him.

What I found most interesting though, was that the vast majority of the comments that attacked Mr. Uzochukwu came from women. It is my own view that a lot of men were silent because quite uncomfortably, a lot of men in Nigeria, agree with such views, and reading their views expressed in print, made them quite uncomfortable. Why, only a few months ago, a Twitter handle associated with comedian Klint The Drunk actually did encourage men to rape a woman if she “spent all their money and did not want to ‘drop'”. The tweet was deleted after a furore, and like most things Nigerian, people forgot about it and retreated to their shells. For the records, Klint the Drunk denied any association with that particular Twitter handle, and indeed there are two Twitter handles which bear similar titles, @KlintDaDrunk is ostensibly his official handle, the offending tweet came from @KlintTheDrunk.

To my knowledge, Mr. Uzochukwu’s article has been removed from this site after he made a request to its editor. That, dear reader, is where we are on a slippery slope.

Fact: there are a whole lot of people living within the borders of Nigeria, including women, who believe that a woman is nothing more than a man’s property and that men reserve sexual rights over their women as and when they feel the urge.

Fact: a very good number of the people with this kind of belief are educated, middle-class, and Internet saavy. Ever heard the expression, “rape and beg”?

Fact: as it happened with the @KlintTheDrunk tweet, we run the very real risk of expressing a lot of righteous indignation, blowing a lot of hot air, and then, silence.

What we have done inadvertently, is to drive many people who share similar ideas underground, and as a result have (once again) lost an opportunity to educate them, and drag them into the 21st Century. Reactions such as happened with Mr. Uzochukwu’s piece, make me wonder whether we are truly democrats in Nigeria.

In 2012, a member of the American House of Representatives, Todd Akin (and no, he is not Yoruba, he is Caucasian), made comments on live TV stating his position that if a woman was a victim of “legitimate rape” and got pregnant as a result, that an abortion should not be procured. His comments immediately led to an uproar, and ignited debate across the United States. Shortly after Akin’s faux pas, a candidate from Indiana, Richard Mourdock, said that a pregnancy from rape was “something that God intended”. Again, like in Akin’s case, there was an uproar. Two things happened: first there was a debate following both statements, and as a result of all debates, Women’s Rights issues have been put on the front burner in the US. Needless to say that both men lost in the elections.

What’s the difference between the reaction in the US and here? First, there was no ad hominem attack on the media that aired both comments. As a matter of fact, some of those media establishments are at the vanguard of the current debate. Second, there is no attempt to bury their heads in the sand out there. Something that we tend to do.

The lesson that we need to learn is really simple, while freedom of expression comes with responsibilities, any attempt to stifle debate will leave us in a worse place than we currently are.

Ultimately, killing the debate, on any issue, no matter how repugnant that issue may appear to us, is to weaken our democracy. Democracies are built on a culture of debate.

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Cheta Nwanze used to be an IT Engineer, then moved from typing code to writing. In that time, he has written for NEXT, Daily Times and a host of other people. YNaija cannot be held responsible for the drivel he comes up with.

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.