Renaldo Gouws launches crowdfund campaign amid racism controversy

Renaldo Gouws, recently expelled from the DA, intends to initiate a legal battle to fight the “misinformation” over his controversial 2010 video which led to him losing his job. 

A crowdfunding effort to raise funds for this, which began 15 days ago, has so far raised R49,935, achieving 47% of its R105,982 goal with contributions from 58 supporters.

The DA’s federal executive last week unanimously decided to expel Gouws from the party, after an investigation by its federal legal commission. The DA had suspended Gouws in June after an old video of him saying “kill the f**ing k**irs, kill all the f**ing n*ggers” in a rant against reverse racism that resurfaced online.

According to DA spokesperson Willie Aucamp, the investigation confirmed the video’s authenticity and deemed it in violation of the party's constitution, leading to Gouws’s expulsion and forfeiture of his parliamentary seat.

In response, Gouws posted on X: “I will be exploring all legal and ethical options available to me to challenge this decision and clear my name.”

He believes there are double standards regarding racial issues in South Africa.

“It’s strange that a statement I made 15 years ago, for which I’ve apologised repeatedly and which was taken out of context, leads to such severe consequences, while individuals like Dudu Zuma, who promoted anarchy leading to deaths, continue to hold positions of power,” he said.

Gouws has threatened legal action against some media outlets, which he accuses of spreading misleading information. He is critical of the media’s handling of the video, which he said was meant to be a hyperbolic demonstration intended to highlight racism's double standards and to showcase how it felt to hear “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer” — not to incite hate.

“I will be releasing a full press statement in the coming week. The video is from 2010 and is six minutes long, not 15 seconds as initially thought. The media’s selective reporting has distorted the context of the video ... I have lodged 21 press complaints against various outlets and so far have one ruling in my favour.

“I will not stop at anything to clear my name and hold those accountable who participated in this horrible smear campaign. Enough is enough. It's time for us to push back and show that there are consequences for media outlets that misuse their platforms at the expense of those whose lives they ruin with their misinformation.”

The sharing of only a few seconds of the footage this year was intended to besmirch the work he had done in the past decade and intended to do as a MP, he said.

“I have said it before and will say it again, if I could go back in time and not use those words knowing what I know now, I would never have used them. It's not words I ever use. It's words I detest. But at the time I believed it suitable to use as an extreme example against Kill the Boer being sung.

“Before I joined a political party, I ensured that I did a lot of introspection, and had a lot of conversations with people from all walks of life. I went through two young leadership programmes and it changed my view on South Africa and how devastating our past was to millions of South Africans. I came out a completely different person, with a much better perspective on South Africa and its people.”