It really has me beat why so many South African Christians worship at the altar of Charlie Kirk. Yes, I know it's been two months, and he's been the most well-behaved he's ever been - but still it seems some people can't help but bring him up in conversations with me, for some weird reason. Perhaps they know it will result in some sort of confrontation, as it inevitably did.
And so I just had an interesting "debate" with one such individual who denied insistently that the guy was "so full of love" and wasn't a racist transphobic scumbag who wanted people like me - for all intents and purposes, dead.
Seems that even when you can show verbatim quotes of his own words, they say you're "mistaken" and "taking that out of context". You just didn't understand him, apparently, even when he was saying the most incredibly offensive racist, misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic things - the fault was yours, not his. Sound familiar?
I honestly don't know how to "contextualize" blatant racism, sexism and transphobia so that it isn't racist, sexist or transphobic - or blatant? Unless you believe he "didn't mean any of it"? In which case, why would you even have listened to him? What would attract you to hang off the lips of a man whom - you claim - said a lot of things he didn't apparently mean? And I mean, a LOT.
Just as I thought, that made no sense at all. None. About as much sense as Elon Musk claiming that education is a waste of time - he already has all the necessary knowledge and expertise to support whatever he says or does because he has qualified experts on his payroll. That makes about as much sense as someone claiming that standing in a church makes them a Christian, in as much as standing in a garage would make them a car. But I digress.
Conversing with this sort of person is like trying to communicate meaningfully with someone who lives in a completely different dimension or reality without any common frame of reference - and possibly while accomplishing amazing feats in mental gymnastics. Facts don't matter. Facts are just "woke libral nonsense". It makes my head hurt.
People like Trump - and Kirk, drive moral panics because they are the source of moral panic narratives. Locally, we have our own examples like former heart-throb and pop-star turned pulpit-pilot, Heinz Winckler, pushing the same horrific right-wing (aka Nazi - call a spade a spade) bullshit through a religious filter into the eager, wide open beaks of their audiences, waiting like hungry chicks ready to swallow any old nonsense they regurgitate. And then it was Kobus Jonker who came up...
Colonel Kobus Jonker (almost typo'd "Honker" there again, as I usually do. Must be a Freudian slip!) "did lots of good things", "he knew what he was talking about," I was told. No, he didn't. And that's the crux of the matter right there. Ignorance. He was ignorant of the facts, he was a Christian zealot wearing a police uniform conducting his own personal witch hunt against the phantom of pseudo-Satanism - but his professional position gave him the credibility and platform to become an idol to these sort of gullible people. They know no more than Kobus Jonker how mistaken they are, but he was confidently wrong when he was still actively crusading to spread his disinformation about occultists to anyone who would give him the time and a platform - as are his fans and followers today.
When you try to correct these people on their claims or beliefs, they decline to listen. Their ears slam shut like your words will infect them with reason or doubt, or both. Either is like poison to indoctrination, of course.
Jonker did not know anything about religious Satanism. He was never a Satanist, he was never an occultist, nor did he ever claim to have been. He did however proudly state numerous times that he was a Christian - but even as a Christian, he apparently never received religious schooling or training at a bible college on the subject of Satanism or the occult as a subject - not that it would've been accurate, unbiased or objective even if he had. No, his knowledge of "Satanism" was distilled through decades of indoctrination into evangelicalism, and disinformation accumulated from exposure to an echo-chamber of moral panic material, the likes of which included the conspiracy-theory nonsense novels and fantasies peddled by Christian anti-Satanist activists and Christian fantasy writers, taken at face value and cited as sources in his own books casting Satanism in the same fantastic conspiratorial vein.
What "good" did he do? Sure, he caught a few vandals and other assorted criminals - as I would expect any worthwhile policeman to have done - but I think the little bit of "good" he may have done as a policeman is far overshadowed by the harm he did as a religious zealot wearing a badge. What harm? Well for starters, from his official platform in law enforcement, he stigmatized a whole swathe of South African society who didn't conform to conservative Afrikaner Christian nationalist norms. He reinforced the misguided and preposterous notion that homosexuality and "gender confusion" (transgender) were a result of demonic influence. He fostered and fanned the flames of the "satanic panic" hysteria of the 1990s and 2000s, in which music, children's toys, games and TV shows were part of some dark and malevolent satanic agenda to overthrow Christian governance and society. Martial arts sports like Karate, Yoga and even meditation were demonized - literally, and stigmatized within Christian influence. A police unit, specialized in persecuting and policing religions was established to pander to his crazy obsession - and it still exists up to this very day. Even as recently as in 2016, Jonker was still appearing on radio talk shows and doing presentations at churches of his "expertise on Satanism" - a subject he truly know very little about - and was celebrated and praised for it.
You see, had Jonker been any kind of actual "expert on Satanism" he would've realized that the "Satanism" he believed was this huge existential threat to "Christian society" and some massive underground criminal enterprise - was really just "reverse Christianity" copied from the moral-panic narratives pushed from Christian pulpits (and I daresay by himself) - and not actual religious Satanism at all, and that the "crimes" he claimed were so integral to Satanism as a religion are incompatible with Satanism as a religion.
Worse still, had any of the scholars or academics in their own various fields known anything at all about Satanism as a religious identity themselves, they would likely not have so easily promoted, rubber-stamped or cited him or his publications as "factual" or "accurate" representations of Satanism, Paganism - or African traditional religious beliefs and practices, which were so readily equated with "devil worship" - and in the Christian sense. Religious bias has clearly played a role in this mischaracterization, and this has had real-world consequences for many, if not all South Africans still affected by the ongoing, often resurgent "satanic panic" to this day.
The irony here - for me at least - is that the people idolizing these figures and defending them from criticism know as little, if not actually less - about the subjects their idols criticize or incite hostility against.
Take the recent rise in hostility against transgender people for example - driven by individuals exactly like Charlie Kirk, and followed eagerly by masses of followers. Do any of these people actually know anything personally about being transgender? Have they cared enough to consult any medical or scientific research explaining the subject? What makes people trans? What does trans mean? How is life for trans people? Have they read any of the studies or findings and reports - especially the ones that allay fears and rubbish the hype and propaganda nonsense? Typically not - but they would rather lend their ears out to populists preaching lies and hate about transpeople that feed into age-old biases and prejudices, often rooted in religious disinformation and propaganda stereotypes - than bother with that "woke science garbage". Because being ignorant and stupid is patriotic - in the Christian-nationalist sense.
Coming back to these sort of Christian idols as a group that features at the center of the modern Christian personality cult - more specifically the modern iterations who occupy the center stage of their awareness, like Charlie Kirk. It's amusing how so many things these Christian idols, bigots and hatemongers say are "taken out of context" when they come home to roost, isn't it? Even when they're presented in black and white. 
It's very telling of cognitive dissonance. Reality contradicts their delusion, so reality doesn't count.
Some of these people, typically the ones who have completely lost objectivity along with their ability to think, let alone critically, try to separate themselves from "other Christians". They do so, claiming to be "not just any Christians - the only true Christians!" Of course, this comes at the cost of looking down on other groups that also call themselves "Christians", for example Catholics... I've come to realize that they are really one of their favorite targets, not so? Oh, Catholics aren't "real, true Christians" - but THEY are? What makes them think their version of fantasy is any more legitimate than anyone else's? Because they believe it?
If they believe they can fly, would that belief be any more realistic than a kid launching themself off a roof with wooden planks strapped to their arms - or will they smash into the ground below and injure themselves?
And while strife, resentment and competition between various Christian sects, cults and "denominations" is certainly not new by any means, these ones call themselves "Christians"... and yet they worship at the altars of Donald Trump, Charlie Kirk and Israeli genocide - and very tellingly, the one figure glaringly absent from their version of "Christianity" is the Christ it is named after - replaced by "Republican Jesus" who has been imported straight outta 'Murica - with all the holy bigotries and sanctimony and hypocrisy reminiscent of that origin.
This bizarre religious fundamentalist, anti-science, delusional, paranoid MAGA mindset has been fed to them through the decades-old pipeline of disinformation, propaganda and indoctrination stemming from American evangelicalist influence that has radiated outwards from the USA for almost a century.
This is why I often warned that so-called evangelism and "church planting" are a toxic menace to society, just like one idiot pissing in a well ruins the drinking water for the entire village.
It's nothing but a cult. A cult of personality.
No comments:
Post a Comment