A tit-for-tat war of words is under way after race-based comments by the Cape Town mayor’s media adviser were exposed and criticised as ”harmful and undesirable speech” by the South African Human Rights Commission.
In an editorial entitled ”Why Africans and coloureds are on [sic] the throat of the other in the Western Cape and Cape Town” adviser Blackman Ngoro said that Africans are ”culturally superior” to coloureds, who, unless they underwent an ”ideological transformation”, would ”die a drunken death”.
The missive, which was penned last year, was discovered on the website of the Afro Rights Committee in Asia, said to be established by Ngoro, and exposed on Wednesday.
On Thursday morning a new editorial was posted, slamming some media organisations that ”label individuals racist, when they in fact practice racism in the process”. The first editorial was withdrawn ”to allow tempers to cool”, then reinstated ”in the interest of robust debate” before being pulled.
The new missive, headlined ”The old editorial will no longer be reinstated. Sorry” says: ”Media organisations were at the forefront of attacks hurling carefully selected excerpts of a website editorial as cultural weapons against free speech. Not to be outdone human rights organisations have joined the fray.”
Mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo said she ”strongly disassociates” herself, her office and the African National Congress from the editorial, while pointing out that Ngoro had written it ”in his personal capacity, in his spare time and using his own resources”. He had, however, been asked to apologise publicly.
Asked whether any disciplinary action would be taken against him Mfeketo’s spokesperson, Mandla Tyala, on Thursday said Ngoro’s apology was ”the end of the matter”.
Attempts to contact Ngoro for comment were unsuccessful.