EDITORIAL | Mashaba put his foot in it with thoughtless tweet and backhanded ‘apology’

ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba would do well to take Benjamin Franklin’s counsel that one should never ruin an apology with an excuse. 

The businessman-turned-politician revealed an unbecoming and sexist streak with his off-colour response to a Twitter user’s photographs at the weekend. The post shows a photo of international relations and co-operation minister Naledi Pandor alongside another image zooming in on seemingly swollen feet in a pair of pumps. The caption asked: “Did Naledi Pandor forget her own shoes at home?”

In response, Mashaba tweeted: “This is the Best President Cyril Ramaphosa can offer South Africans to represent them internationally.”

Shortly after 53 retweets and 205 likes, the former Jozi mayor put his foot in it again with his excuse of an apology. 

“I have deleted my tweet RE Naledi Pandor. The original tweet I quoted was in terrible taste. I was wrong to share it, and I apologise.

“While I do not believe she is equipped to represent SA on the international stage, that will never make it OK to ridicule her,” he posted.

Mashaba’s remorse is appreciated, but it was a backhanded apology. He should have hit the tweet button after he apologised, because his follow-up point reinforced the ridicule in his first tweet. 

It smacked of double standards and blatant disrespect disguised as banter, from taverns to boardrooms, school yards to family gatherings. It’s the subliminal bias, passed on from generation to generation of body shaming and assuming a woman’s worth is based on how she looks.

To compound matters, the pictures were assumed to be taken during President Cyril Ramaphosa’s state visit to the UK, where he was accompanied by Pandor last week. But there is speculation the pictures weren’t taken then. This means Mashaba’s comments were not only insensitive but potentially factually incorrect.

Irrespective of the circumstances — and by the way, gravitational oedema or swelling, is a thing for some travellers after international travel —  the tweets were rude and humiliating, and feed into the cycle of disrespect that breeds emotional and physical abuse. 

Mashaba’s offside remark comes as SA is observing 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, in which he himself laments the spiralling crime.

This is a politically charged time as leaders jostle to grab voter attention in the countdown to the ANC’s national elective conference a few weeks away.

But as a leader, Mashaba should recognise the responsibility and power he wields with his 280 characters on Twitter. 

We expect a lot more from someone who influences coalition arrangements in our municipalities in Gauteng, and he should be using his agency to action change and shape conversations that unpack gender bias. 

Instead, he descends into the gutter and displays the lowest of political immaturity to score cheap brownie points with his below-the-belt comments. 

It’s shallow and patronising.

That sort of personal mudslinging is actionable, and SA should not stand for it.