If you can think of anything that could help, please let me know. Also if you feel strongly please join me in lobbying on the issue.
This is the thing:
I'm sure I'm not the only parent in Cape Town that shuddered at the launch of an English version of the tabloid, Die Son / The Son. I have never bought it and never will, but have heard that it has a wide and growing circulation whose right to purchase it I respect. Although I dislike sensationalist tabloid journalism and the thought of using half naked 'page 3' women to sell 'news' is abhorrent to me, I do not challenge their right to publish. I believe fundamentally in freedom of the press and the right to print and publish. I can protect myself and my children from exposure to the medium by not buying the newspaper.
Where I feel my rights and the rights of the children of our city are being abused is in the public display of their daily headline posters on street poles. The offensive and graphic headlines may merely be an annoyance to me, but they are an assault on my children. Like most young children in Grade 1 and 2, my 8 year old child loves to read. Excited by her newly attained skill she reads everything from library books and magazines to the Corn Flakes box at breakfast. On the way to and from school every day she reads street signs and posters and she asks questions about what she sees: directions to the Hospital, No Left Turn, what's on at the Theatre and thanks to The SON, she asks me what "sodomy" and "Satanism" mean and who was "beaten to death" or had their "penis cut off'. I am not able to protect her from reading "Teenage Rapists have penises cut off" / "Rapists in Deaf Home" / "Praedo is a Satanist". I am not hiding from reality, I know that all over the world and in our country in particular there is terrible crime and horror, but please let's protect the youngest of our children from the details. I am quite open and responsible about educating my child, but I would prefer to choose the time and place to raise issues of abhorrent sexuality and extreme violence in an informative, responsible and age appropriate manner. Every day in the car is too much, too soon and too often. It is not merely offensive, it is an assault and an abuse on the rights of children to be protected.
I don't believe the state should impose censorship on what consenting adults may choose to read, that's a slippery slope to fascism. But when we are exposed to words in the public arena, how do we choose not to read them? Die Son seems to be targeting a barely literate readership with short, snappy simple to read headlines... headlines that the youngest reader just graduating from "the cat sat on the mat" can sound out and read. There should be some government control over and limit on what we allow children to read. What can we do?
with thanks
Jaqueline Dommisse
