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Deon Maas fired by Rapport! Who would have guessed?
About two weeks ago Deon Maas left Die Burger to take up an appointment at the Afrikaans Sunday newspaper, Rapport. Before he left Die Burger there was a regular stream of complaints about his columns with many a reader threatening to stop purchasing the newspaper yet Rapport thought it a good idea to employ him. For this very reason I don't have much sympathy for Rapport. One can only speculate on this appointment but I cannot help feeling that he was appointed by Rapport hoping that he will stir up as much controversy as he did at Die Burger, a dangerous but potentially effective means of boosting circulation. If this was the reasoning they got their free publicity but not to Rapport's benefit, as they may have been hoping.
In the last issue of Rapport, in an article named:"666 is net n syfer" - (666 is just a number) Deon Maas suggested that satanism is a religion that has the right to be practised. Rather a brave stance to take when your main readership is from the conservative side of society. As can be expected all hell broke loose. The Rapport readers initiated email and sms campaigns in an attempt to boycott the newspaper. It became even worse for the newspaper, the distribution agents refused to deliver it and many small town retailers refused to stock it.
In his reaction to the furore Mr Maas calls this a witch-hunt. (Must admit that I can see the humour in this). He states, inter alia, that many of the people who joined this campaign against him and the newspaper did not even read the article and therefore did not have first hand knowledge. He is of the opinion that this fact makes it 'scary'.
Let's apply Mr Maas' logic to the situation. If it is 'scary' that people have an opinion about something when they don't have first hand knowledge, are we to assume that Mr Maas applies the same rule to himself and his work as a journalist. If he does then one can only conclude that he is, or was, a practising satanist. As he has stated that he is not a satanist this means that he must have been a practicing satanist in the past. If this is not so then he is a hypocrite that ridicules the public, yet by his own logic this is the very reason which makes his article fatuitous.
I'm not exactly impressed with the editor, Mr du Plessis', statement either. He points out that the newspaper does not endorse the articles of their columnists but apply the doctrine of free speech. An honourable attitude. I just wonder, if Mr Maas wrote an article pointing out a hundred reason why it would be better to buy a rival newspaper, whether the doctrine of free speech would still have been in operation or would the article have been shelved? Freedom of expression or selective freedom of expression?
The reader will notice that my main objection is not so much Deon Maas' article about satanism but rather the circumstances surrounding it. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -- The Friends of Voltaire, 1906. I only became interested in the controversy when both Deon Maas and Mr du Plessis' reactions appeared to be hypocritical.
The spelling of satanism with lower-case is on purpose as I do not regard it as a religion, but that is another story.
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