Stripping naked in protest signals depth of desperation to be heard, not sexual adventure

A few months ago, news headlines in SA bandied about images of one Bulelani Qholani who was forcefully removed from his shack as part of the City of Cape Town’s plan to evict residents who occupied land illegally.

Qholani has since received public sympathy for finding himself in a compromising situation of indignity.

Qholani's image put the City of Cape Town under heavy scrutiny with much reference on the dignity of the naked man when he was forced out of his house in the full glare of the public and his daughter. Section 10 of SA’s constitution makes provision for the right to dignity.

The notion of dignity in this instance carries a much deeper link to the total respect for the human being. Human rights ought to afford the basic necessities in the form of housing and sanitation among other things.

This forces us to recall the incident in October 2016 at Wits University when female students were body shamed, sexualised, and condemned for having a nude protest to intensify their struggles during the FeesMustFall protests.

The protests were about the indignity of poverty which dictates that historically disadvantaged South Africans would be unable to afford a decent education. Those protests bear a historical trait whereby the former apartheid regime’s efforts in giving the bare minimum to black African students denotes a perpetual galvanisation of the masses towards social justice.

History abounds in myriad instances where African women protested in nudity to convey a message, using nudity as a political tool as opposed to sexual objectification.

Given this background, a worrisome factor comes into play when nude protesters of FeesMustFall were vilified amid their conviction that using their bodily integrity would draw the attention of those who need to pay attention. The “body” was used as an instrument for fighting injustices but the female students faced a public backlash. In the Qholani matter, the City of Cape Town faced reprisal for its actions.

The injustice of poor access to housing falls squarely in the corpus of first generation human rights and so does access to education. Both incidents give us an opportunity to reflect on how the integrity of the body can be violated when faced with issues of human indignity such as a lack of water and sanitation, housing, access to education, among others.

Any form of rebuke meted out during the FeesMustFall nude protests should have heeded an acknowledgment of the poor state of access to higher education. The public outrage should be the means to question the extent to which poverty and inequalities force human beings to use their bodies as an instrument of advocacy.

The bodies of women protesters at Wits were never meant for pleasurable public display but to symbolise the indignity of being poor, and the inability to access education as part of human development.

Indignity as a perpetuation of poverty resides in the bodies and minds of those thrust into situations of poverty, often without a choice. The nude protests made a significant contribution to the review of government policy on strengthening access to higher education. The Qholani case forced institutions such as the Human Rights Commission to take the City of Cape Town to court.

Nudity in both contexts was able to raise the attention of those in authority to question the state of human dignity in the context of human rights; inclusive of the right to access to education, housing and other entitlements. Neither incident deserves more public sympathy than the other because at the core of the imagery of nakedness lie factors of indignity as a result of poor access to the needs of human development.

-Teleki is communications manager at the Commission for Gender Equality.

-Ngcobo is provincial manager at the Commission for Gender Equality.