Date Of Original Posting: August 2008
by
Bart Harrings
Wednesday August 13, 2008
It started as a normal late afternoon golf game. Standing at tee #1 some elder club members were trading jokes and waiting for flights to form themselves. Suddenly, the Chairman said: "Sing [real name withheld] told me you have a web page about the club?". The tone was one of unsettlement.
"Yes", I said, "I report to my friends on my site"
"But you should have told us".
"It's not a secret, and it is not posing as a club site, it is just one of my greetings to friends, I make no money with that page, if people like me to delete it, I will".
"Sing says it is even racist".
"That is ridiculous. I am not a racist".
"I told Sing to print it and let me read it".
"That is a good idea. Tell me if you want it off."
It is my turn to tee off with another player, so we part.
I have lots of three-puts.
On return in the club house the chairman on the veranda, not reading. But the 8 page web text with pictures is posted on the club house wall. Sing? Anyway, someone thinks he should try to light a fire. Would the chairman like that?
I hope not, so I return to the veranda and tell him, with a welcoming gesture inward: "its is already hanging. On the wall".
But the chairman does not take action.
I see Sing, go to him and say: "I heard people may have felt offended by that web page, if anyone did, I delete it".
"That is a matter for the chairman", Sing says with a gentle smile.
Since when is the chairman doing my web site? I thought. I went home.
At home I decided there was no reason to wait for any further reactions and I deleted the page from the internet.
[now, after two years, following the last incidents, I have uploaded again the original page "Jinja Club Life", without alterations, after all it has become an historical document, it is now on this blog, right below this posting]
Thursday 080814
The next day I went to the club with an apology to offended members. Now, the text of the web page had disappeared from the wall. I put my paper on the empty place, a nineteen-sixties view from Jinja Club (as was on display on my web page)
I apologize to anyone who felt offended by any of the things I reported about in my web page on Jinja Club. I unconditionally love the club not only as it really is but even the way esteemed members wish people to think about it. I have deleted the page from the internet.
The club manager told me he had orders from the chairman to tell me not to play pending my suspension.
"Do you have it written?"
"No but you should not play".
"I am not suspended until I am suspended. I will play. Do not worry, I'll tell them you did your job and I refused to comply".
I was not really in the mood for golf, launched 24 symbolic practice shots and signed the club book for driving range use.
Then it was time to wait for the incoming flights with senior members. The chairman entered. I went to show him the club book: "I just want to show you down here, you see? I played".
What does that mean?
"I played", I said over my shoulders, walking back to the veranda. It looked like the chairman was really wondering what it meant. Could the manager, who tried to stop my golf, have been lying about his "chairman's orders"? If the chairman would take interest in talking to me I could find out. But no approach.
I stayed long on the veranda, giving anybody the opportunity to talk to me. Only the golf captain did, inside, when I passed him one time: "I thought you had already been suspended, but you will soon get your letter". So indeed it had not, as the club manager had maintained, been the chairman, but the golf captain, possibly lying to the club manager that the orders came from the chairman, after all, a club manager would have no reason to hide the golf captain behind the chairman.
"They should ban you from the club altogether", one of the golf captain's friends said.
"You call us chimps". I do not remember whether this was the golf captain or one of his entourage.
Not letting this club conversation go on very long, I returned to the veranda, where some friendly club members told me that in their estimation I would be suspended, but I should take it calmly, I would just adhere to the rules of my suspension and then everything would be business as usual. Ironically they claim to be psychologically preparing me for suspension: "stay cool", "use your shock absorbers".
After taking some more beers the golf captain group tore my apologies from the wall.
The next day I decided to stay away from the club. Around sunset the manager called me to say he had a letter for me. I collected it the following morning. It reported the decision.
JINJA CLUB
Office of the Chairman
Tel: 0772 799 99610772 411 715 P.O. Box 638
E-Mail : mjkabeho@madhvani.org JINJA
Date: 14.08.2008
Attn: Mr. Bart Harmminga
SUB: INDEFINATE SUSPENSION
This is in reference to the web publication you unilaterally made on Jinja Club without
the consent of the Club Management of which some information was false. incorrect,
defamatory and damaging to the Club image.
Il has been decided that you serve an indefinite suspension with immediate effect until
the committee consults and reviews the implication of your publication.
Please hand over any Club property in your possession to the manager and by copy of
this letter. the management is directed not to extend any services to you including games and the Club house.
Yours fàithtullv.
Mwinde Jim Kabeho
CHAIRMAN
Cc: Chairman Uganda Golf Union
Members of Executive
Manager Jinja Club
So, now is was written. An "indefinate" suspension of a person called "Bart Harrminga". Had they targeted me and missed due to rural semi-literacy? I could deny this and claim I was not suspended. But that would be too childish. But since no hearing seemed to have been scheduled at all, not even to verify my name, I decided to answer thus:
From: Bart Harrings
To: Chairman Jinja Club
Through: Manager
Jinja, August 27, 2008
Thank you for you letter of 14-08-2008 concerning my suspension. Being a foreigner, I think I should just assume your decision is appropriate to the circumstances. I wish, however, to express my happiness that qualifications like "racist", which haunted the club in high profile are refrained from. I infer from your letter, since it says that a decision has been taken, that hearing an accused person is not part of Jinja Clubs suspension procedure. Let me therefore write you what I would have said had I been heard.
Nine years ago, easy software appeared allowing you to make text, insert pictures, and email them to friends. I started to use it for holiday greetings. But at the time, email boxes still were small compared to the size of such files. Hence I started to upload my greetings to a server, and just sent a link to my friends, allowing them to access them on a moment of their own choice while not burdening their email boxes. Since I had no plan to communicate secrets, I did not bother to password protect these greetings. While internet became a big thing and search engines got introduced, in communicating my greetings I was still using the system as a means to blog files to a server that friends could access. And up to today, these blogs are normally read only by 20-odd people I know personally, almost all in Europe. Nevertheless, I realized there was no password protection so the pages were accessible for every internet user.
However it came about, a reader outside my small group of regularly alerted friends accessed my page about Jinja Club. He or she thought the page was controversial and informed others in the club, who started to ask me questions. Though nobody asked or advised me to, I immediately removed the page from the server holding my files. I thought people thus far involved would understand I had no intention to damage Jinja Club. Why would I? What would be my profit of such a thing? And if at this point a conversation between the few club members involved, including me, had followed, the issue would have ended inconspicuously.
But the highly unfortunate course of events was different: the same evening I deleted the file, a hard copy of the page was posted on the club house wall. Others had printed hard copies before I could delete the page. After the page’s removal from the wall the attention of members not yet informed went frantically for these copies. The crown of all this conspicuous firework was my suspension (if by "Bart Harrminga" you mean me, Bart Harrings), that had probably become inevitable after these events.
I am sorry for having uploaded to an internet server a non-password protected greeting to my friends that turned out to be controversial. I turned out to have made something that could be used to inflame the club, as the wall posting did. Even though I did not see this while making the page, I do carry responsibility. After removal of the page, I posted my apologies on the club house wall, but senior members removed it. I refuse all requests for copies and comments on the events. I nowhere raise the issue. I will continue to do so. Copies circulating at the moment do not come from me. We may still have a chance that this thing will come to a halt before literally every bystander has satisfied his curiosity. Every one of the highly unfortunate moves towards the present situation is understandable from some angle. Moreover, I realize with regret that had my page not been available, all this could not have happened.
Yours Sincerely,
Bart Harrings
My wake up on the issue was too slow. When on that Wednesday (top of page) I was first asked about the page, I did not even think it would get frowned upon after it would have been properly read, even though I realized the pages did report on some neglect of maintenance of respect for property, not the most serious I know, but the most amusing. I thought they were considered normal: everybody knows, the club house veranda conversation habitually concerns them, and never so by suggesting that serious action should be taken. I do not consider my tone in the web page to be defaming or even one of accusation, but rather of benevolent resignation. I read my web page again. Yes, I am still really pleased with it! The quality of my web pages is not always superb, but this page is surely way above my average. Sing knew - and little did I foresee - that by posting it on the club house wall, he could injure members' pride, yes, high pride, more than sufficiently to have their author suspended, and his apologies even torn off the wall!
Nobody in the club seemed to have given any thought to how to contain the presumed "damage" . The desire to retaliate was far stronger. Thus, Sing published the page on the club house wall, in order to turn members against the author and the club officials kept it available for any interested reader, under the bar table. After the conspicuous firework of suspending the author this naturally is made use of, to say the least, eagerly. Thus club officials effectively spread the very pages they regard as regrettable.
Summary: Jinja Club suspended a member for a "publication", but
- The club merely accidentally found, or was given by someone who merely accidentally found, a private, though unprotected blog on an internet server.
- A member of the club's committee published the blog's text on the club house wall without consent (a copyright infringement).
- The club's committee unilaterally judged "some information" in the text as "false, incorrect, defamatory and damaging to the club image". That opinion is not generally shared. Surely I never thought of it like that.
- Such a difference of opinion may be annoying but R&A formally a club can not suspend someone for just writing something. Even if it had concerned a genuine publication, or even "false etc.", golf etiquette would have required more respect for freedom of expression.
- Then the club abandoned the suspension procedure half way by simply never fixing the term.
- To my knowledge Jinja club never had a member "Bart Harrminga". If I am correct in that, formally no one has been suspended at all in this incident, though of course they targeted myself.
- As it stands, Jinja Club's registration as a golf club and its membership of the Uganda Golf Union is a violation of R&A standards, both because its course is not up to the standard for being called a golf course and for the total unawareness of R&A management standards in the committee, as transpires from this incident.
Jinja, Uganda, August 2008,
Bart Harrings
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