Freedom Of Speech Has Consequences
And Gareth Cliff is not exempt from those consequences
Online radio host and owner of Cliff Central, Gareth Cliff has recently come under fire for comments made to One South Africa Movement spokesperson Mudzuli Rakhivhane on her experiences as a black woman. Cliff is not new to controversy over remarks made on radio as he has been criticized several times before for the same thing.
The Cliff Central breakfast show is hosted by Cliff himself and was sponsored by popular chicken franchise Nandos. Following the controversy, Nandos terminated their sponsorship of the show citing the incident as the main reason for the cancellation.
Many have criticised Nandos’ response, citing that this is not Cliff’s first time on this rodeo — he has made racially insensitive remarks in the past, which others may call out right racist. I am not interested in dissecting Cliff’s comments, past or present, but rather want to use the backlash as the basis of discussing the consequences of freedom of speech.
Let’s deal with the legal stuff first. I’m not a lawyer so this will not be a detailed analysis of the relevant laws. The South African Constitution guarantees the freedom of expression particularly to the media and Cliff’s The Burning Platform qualifies as media. The Constitution mentions that this freedom does not extend to propaganda for war, incitement of imminent violence and advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm.
It is common cause that Cliff’s comments do not extend to hate speech hence there has not been any reactionary moves to report his to the Human Rights Commission which is what tends to happen when someone says anything racist. No political figures have laid any crimen injuria charges which tells me that no one actually believes Cliff has transgressed the law.
Now that we have established that Cliff has not seemingly done anything illegal, why did he lose the sponsorship? Because freedom of speech is not exemption from the consequences.
When the Cliff video trended, what you saw was not only people who disagreed with Cliff but, who also found his comments to be both crass and undermining of what a black person is expressing as the issues faced by black people. The people who found Cliff’s comments to be undermining of the black experience took the decision that there should be a social cost to Cliff for such comments. Although outside the bounds of the law, the general public also has the freedom to create a social cost to actions that are deemed undesirable by that community.
Let’s look on some political history. When the Apartheid government initially put spies in black communities to counter anti-Apartheid movements, communities quickly realized that certain members were compromised. People who were suspected to be spies (impimpi) were ‘excluded’ from community gatherings and churches. They quickly lost friends and family and were no longer allowed to be part of the community. This was the social cost to being perceived as a spy.
Black township communities could only create a social cost as they could not lay a charge at the police station on someone for being an Apartheid spy. As history teaches us, this social cost simply did not work in deterring people from being spies. This is why communities ultimately resorted to necklacing as a means of deterring others from becoming Apartheid spies. There are obviously complex underlying issues here including the fact that very often spies were forced into that position and did not go into it willingly but, allow me to make the point.
What we are seeing with growing numbers of people asking for public figures who make racist, misogynist and homophobic remarks to lose followers and sponsorships, is a social cost response of a people who feel harmed or victimized by an act that cannot be remedied by the criminal justice system.
What Cliff faces is not a repression of his freedom of speech but the consequences of undermining the harm of racism that black people experience. No one is trampling of his right to say whatever he wants (given it is not hate speech) but what is happening is him facing the consequences of his freedom of speech.
The broader conversation then would be, what are the bounds of this ‘consequence’. Can my company fire me for expressing a political opinion which it disagrees with? Certainly not.
Your employment contract is very different from a sponsorship deal between an internet radio station and a brand. Employment contacts are governed by all sorts of laws and aggrieved employees have access to the CCMA whereas the contract between Cliff and Nandos is simply governed by the general laws of contract. So in summary, you would have to say something that is outright hate speech to be fired by your employer.
People who do not have large public profiles are less susceptible to being affected by the social cost. It is not lost on me that Cliff most likely did not lose any friends or family because of the remarks made. I don’t think he even lost any followers or listeners. Therefore the average person who does not have the platform he does will most likely not experience any social costs to them being racist, queerphobic or misogynist thus will not face any consequences for their speech (which is not hateful).
Because so many of us are not at risk of losing things because of what we say, it may seem that Cliff losing a sponsorship with Nandos is not fair to him and his staff. However, if you look at what this is in substance — a social cost for undesirable behavior — then it becomes easier to reason out why the calls for Nandos to cancel the sponsorship were justified.
My hope for the Cliff situation going forward is that society realizes that we have the power to create a social cost to speech and actions that we deem violent or harmful (even if the criminal justice system is involved). We cannot allow racists, misogynists and queerphobes to continue unabated. Freedom of speech has consequences and those consequences should be felt by those who harm us.
