OUT TO LUNCH
We live in strange and dangerous times. If a woman claims that a man has behaved in a sexually inappropriate manner to her in the last 40 years there is really no need to go through all the tedious and expensive process of a trial. That’s why we have social media.
The baying mob will assume the man’s guilt, irrespective of denials or evidence to the contrary, and the man will be publicly shamed and hounded by the media. His immediate family will be put in the spotlight because they must, as close relatives, have been complicit in his crime and his employer, if he has one, will be forced to fire him.
___STEADY_PAYWALL___
If it later turns out that he was innocent of the charges and was simply the victim of a smear campaign then nobody will ever know because that sort of story doesn’t make the newspapers or attract clickbait. Unlike real justice, rough justice must be done and be seen to be done.
Last week Woody Allen’s unfortunately named New York publisher Hachette literally took the hatchet to his book of memoirs ‘Apropos of Nothing’ after his daughter and son with former partner of twelve years Mia Farrow made allegations of historic sexual abuse.
This is nothing new and the less than reliable Farrow side of the family have been making these allegations since Woody dumped Mia in favour of Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon-Yi and married her in 1997. This raised eyebrows because the age difference between the two is about thirty five years but what the hell? That’s show biz.
Despite the obvious historic acrimony between Mia (a woman scorned) and Woody Allen there has never been sufficient evidence to prosecute and he has never appeared in court on charges of any sort. However, the “triggered” employees of Hachette in New York and Boston staged a walkout in protest and the invertebrate bosses at Hachette decided to pulp the book rather than publish it.
As a long time fan of Woody Allen (particularly his early monologues) I would dearly love to read his memoirs and I hope that a more gutsy publisher will buy the rights, ignore the shrill protests of the weirdo Farrows and give Woody fans something to read while we all self isolate.
If a man claims that he was sexually molested as a child by a prominent politician then he will now be taken at his word in the UK and valuable police resources will be diverted to the investigation while more boring crimes like stabbing, burglary and domestic assault are put on the back burner.
Last year a particularly nasty piece of work called Carl Beech was jailed for 18 years for perverting the course of justice. But only after millions of pounds and hours of police time had been wasted on his ludicrous claims that a VIP paedophile ring that included a former prime minister, a decorated war hero, a former home secretary, the former heads of MI5 and MI6 and a clutch of MP’s and members of the House of Lords had existed during the 1970’s and 1980’s and that many of the molested boys had been kidnapped, tortured and even murdered to guarantee their silence.
The lengthy investigation resulted in not a single arrest but the names of the alleged suspects had been blown all over the media for months and it was assumed that where there was smoke there was fire. Why else would senior police officers take the time and trouble to investigate such a serious crime? Why indeed?
It transpired that Beech was a paedophile with a vast collection of images of young children on his computer. Quite how the cops could have been led down the garden path by someone like this is seriously worrying but part of the explanation is that we live in a ‘Brave Woke World” and anybody who believes themselves to be a victim must be assumed to be a victim, irrespective of any lack of evidence. So much for the rule of law.
Happily South Africa hasn’t sunk quite as low as the UK and the USA yet although we have more than our fair share of malignant left wing nutters lecturing in non subjects like ‘Gender Studies’ at universities and we have a fair sprinkling of corrupt faux journalists keen to spread fake news.
Kudos to The Citizen then for getting rid of the poisonous Daniel Friedman a few weeks ago. Having been unsuccessfully ‘no-platformed’ by someone called Charl Linde for an IRR event last year at Stellenbosch University I am under no illusion that there are plenty of crazies out there who believe they have excusive rights to decide whose opinions should be heard and who should unequivocally be labeled racist, homophobe, alt-right, white supremacist and so on.
The only way to resist this sort of behaviour is to expose it for the fascist nonsense it is and to mock it mercilessly. Which is why it’s troubling to see large corporates bowing to mob pressure as Woolworths did recently when they were forced to remove a Country Road bag which just happened to be in the same colours as the old South African flag (as are the Metro Cops cars and Toll Road gantries in Gauteng).
Woolworth’s groveled obsequiously and apologized for any offence caused when what they should have done was just told people who were “triggered” to seek professional help and not buy the bag. Despite the number of self important freaks who posted on Twitter that they would be boycotting Woolworths from now on because of this outrage I didn’t notice that the queues at my local and much loved Woollies were any shorter the following week.
However, South Africa hasn’t completely escaped the current woke virus threatening common sense around the world. If you use the dreaded K word you will find yourself in front of a judge within months and, depending on whether the judge is having a good day or not, may well find yourself with a six month prison sentence and a heavy fine.
Not so though if you happen to be called Doc Dan Matjila and you’ve diverted tens of millions of PIC pensioner funds to one of your scaly mates in the newspaper publishing world. Despite overwhelming evidence of guilt you will have to await your day in court while the NPA construct a watertight case. A good opportunity to improve your golf game.
