EDITORIAL | If the ANC were committed to equality, Mokatsane would be fired

The Moqhaka municipality in the Free State issued an insulting apology recently after degrading comments by its mayor, Motloheloa Mokatsane, about black South Africans, crime and violence.

It said it regretted Mokatsane’s use of the K-word during his address to residents who were protesting against incidents of gender-based violence (GBV) in the area.

Addressing the crowd, the mayor said: “Crime is what we were born for as k****rs.” When the protestors shouted in disagreement, he added: “OK comrades, let me put it in a different way. We, as black people, are violent and suffering violence every day.”

A video of the incident soon went viral on social media, leading to a public outcry and calls for Mokatsane’s removal from office.

Responding, the council, not the mayor, apologised.

The violence that occurs in many areas does not take place because they are largely occupied by black people, but because the government, led by Mokatsane’s ANC, is failing to reverse the legacy of apartheid.

“The use of that word was not intended to cause any harm or intimidate any individual,” it said. “It was used in the context of trying to explain the current conditions of violence in the communities where we live. It is very unfortunate that the word has been used as we really want to apologise for the use of that word to anyone who might be affected ...”

Let’s ignore for a moment that “anyone who might be affected” seems to suggest a derogatory word so closely associated with our painful, racist history may be harmful to anyone.

What this municipality is really telling us is that, apart from the use of the K-word, it sees nothing wrong with much of what the mayor said.

This man did not just drag us back to the dark ages by using the term, but went on to spew the same racist garbage that was used in the past justify colonial conquest and apartheid.

No one, no matter their race or religion, is a born criminal. The violence that occurs in many areas does not take place because they are largely occupied by black people, but because the government, led by Mokatsane’s ANC, is failing to reverse the legacy of apartheid — which has condemned the majority to poverty — and is terrible at securing citizens.

That Mokatsane still has his job is an indictment on the ANC, a party that fashions itself as a champion of nonracialism and the restoration of dignity to those who were oppressed.

We cannot help but wonder whether he would have remained mayor had he not been black. Unlikely.

This incident demonstrates that while we have improved as a society in calling out racism, as in the case of the Stellenbosch University student who urinated on a fellow student’s belongings, we don’t display the same urgency in dealing with those with internalised racist logic — those prepared to denounce their own communities as “born criminals” and “k****rs”.

It is not only white supremacists who prevent SA from successfully breaking with its past, it is also self-hating political types such as Mokatsane. It is precisely because they see the majority as “k****rs” who are only good for “crime” and votes that they remain content with a country with rising racial inequality, unemployment and poverty.