When the whole Web 2.0 thing began being used for comments on news sources, I thought it was brilliant. I loved posting what I fondly imagined to be my lucid and enlightening arguments, convinced I would sway the debate with my elegant reasoning. It didn’t take long for disillusionment to set in. Comment threads I got embroiled in include, from memory, a nasty debate about whether Crash or Brokeback Mountain should have won the best film Oscar; news articles written by my friend The Queen of Cakes on which I would try and defend her from sniping, gripy comments; discussions on Mugabe in which I tried to convince other contributors that black empowerment rhetoric is just so much cant if you’re actually brutalising, starving and killing the people you’re supposed to be empowering.
Through these bruising encounters I realised that many people who post comments on news stories already have their mind made up – and are unlikely to engage in any rational debate. So it is with sadness but no surprise that I heard about the BBC discussion forum which asked users of its African news website whether homosexuals should be executed. In context, and sadly, while inflammatory, it is not such a stupid question to ask – as it refers to a programme on the World Service highlighting the shocking news that the Ugandan Parliament is considering a bill which would see gay activity punishable by the death sentence in Uganda.
I don’t really know where to start with this story. Lets just say, though that we leave aside the shocking implications of this bill, and the continued and frustrating refusal of countries across Africa to recognise sexual orientation as a basic human right; and the wrongheadedness of the BBC in using what must be seen as a deliberately provocative title to their forum (it has now been changed to the more considered “Should Uganda debate gay execution?”). What I’d like to look at is the inevitable commentary that this story provoked.
The comments which The Guardian pointed out in their report on the story have now been removed, so that Chris, from Guildford, who said at 8.59am yesterday “”Totally agree. Ought to be imposed in the UK too, asap. Bring back some respectable family values. Why do we have to suffer ‘gay pride’ festivals? Would I be allowed to organise a ’straight pride’ festival? No, thought as much!! If homosexuality is natural, as we are forced to believe, how can they sustain the species? I suggest all gays are put on a remote island somewhere and left for a generation – after which, theoretically there should be none left!”
This one, from Caiyai in London, is still there however: “I can see why the leaders of Africa has impose this bill. Take a look at the world and what people are doing. The traditional laws and ways of life seems to be irrelevent and eroding away to those who have accepted certain ways with society now. We have forgotten the value and purpose of life. Not because the western countries has laws that protect them and their sexual preference/ needs. That does not mean that another country should adhere to these rules”.
The beeb has obviously now censored the debate and while some very dubious comments remain, it is now a broadly speaking civilised exchange of views (albeit many of them ones I personally find deeply unsettling). But what really makes me lose my faith in humanity in all its variety of views and standpoints is that it takes this sort of editing to ensure that this is the case.