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Teens Protest South African Kissing Ban
The Republic of South Africa has more than a few problems. The newly elected leader of the African National Congress and front-runner to become the next president is under a cloud of corruption charges. AIDS is crippling whole neighborhoods across the country. Poverty among blacks hasn’t abated much since the end of apartheid. And Zimbabwe to the north hasn’t been addressed at all. Yet, the government has found time to pass a law forbidding romantic contact among those under 16 years of age. The kids have responded by publicly hugging and kissing even platonic friends.
The government alleges that the law is there to prevent sexual liaisons among older men and young girls as well as prevent sexual assaults on the mentally disabled. No doubt the government opens its morning egg with a sledgehammer. King Knute (Canute for those in Britain) only ordered the tides to go out to illustrate to his court that there were limits to his power. Had he really wanted to demonstrate those limits, he would have tried to prevent 14-year-olds from playing spin the bottle.
Fortunately for South Africa, there are some kids who know bullshit laws when they see them, and they organized protests. According to MSNBC,
The organizer, or at least instigator, of the movement was Frances Murray, 14, an exuberant denizen of online-networking sites who has long, dark hair and wears braces and black nail polish. Shortly before Christmas, with just a few weeks to go before she started 10th grade under South Africa's school calendar, she learned about the law from a friend while instant messaging, she said. “When I checked it out, I thought ‘Okay, how am I going to go out and break this law’?” recalled Frances.
She created a Facebook group called “Everybody Against the New Kissing Law.” She had 166 people join up on the first day and by day two there were 664. As of now, it has about 14,000. The plan is to kiss every Saturday in public at 12 noon. Two day ago, young Ms. Murray operated out of the Northgate Ice Arena in Johannesburg. The police arrived at 1 pm. And they did nothing when she hugged a few friends and, for the benefit of a news crew, kissed a boy on the cheek.
A Justice Department spokesman said, “Technically it is illegal, but obviously those children are not going to be charged.” Assistant Police Commissioner Tertius Geldenhuys stated, “Your innocent children will not be prosecuted, and the police will not take note of it. We have much bigger issues to concern ourselves with.” Yes, indeed. At the same time, Ms. Murray has proved something very important about some of the kids in South Africa – going along with a bad law is a crime in itself. That’s how apartheid happened in the first place. Ms. Murray is this journal’s hero.
© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.
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