No holy cow too sacred

Fired Rapport columnist Deon Maas slays holy Afrikaner cows with the skill of an abattoir boss, but that is not to say the cows will not put up a fight. And some especially vicious ones bite back, as Maas found out last week.

Recently Maas still exhibited the scars from his fight with Rapport readers, which ultimately led to his dismissal. Some readers and distributors threatened to boycott the paper because Maas had written that Satanists should also have a right to practise their religion.

Even though he was hired by Rapport to stir the pot, Satanism proved his undoing. Rapport editor Tim du Plessis buckled under the pressure and Maas was fired.

‘I am disappointed and sad about what happened. I have been humiliated in public,” he says. ‘But I still believe that the whole Rapport campaign was initiated by a small minority and that Rapport did not have the balls to stick by me.”

This is not the first time Maas has stirred up controversy — in fact he is someone Afrikaans speakers love to hate. He became this community’s Simon Cowell when he judged hopefuls in the Afrikaans version of Idols, and received tons of hate mail for his biting remarks.

He stepped on some artists’ toes as a result and was soon embroiled in a bekgeveg (slanging match) with Steve Hofmeyr and Kurt Darren.

Maas was chosen as a judge for Idols because of his music experience. He started out at Tusk Music in the Eighties before moving to Gallo. He managed prominent artists such as Lucky Dube, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Johannes Kerkorrel.

Maas has been around the block. He started out as a journalist at Huisgenoot before adding newspaper columnist, talk show host, Idols judge, television scriptwriter and documentary-maker to his portfolio. He was also marketing manager for Marvel comics and creative director of the South African Music Awards. At present he runs Meerkat Media — a consultancy servicing the music industry.

This means he still has a job. The strange thing, he says, is that the Satanism angle that he was fired for did not elicit the worst reaction he has ever had from the public.

That honour belongs to a game he designed for his website. Maas admits that he has never been a fan of cyclists, and says that one of his pet hates is a group of four cyclists travelling side by side.

To vent his frustration he created a game where points are scored each time a cyclist is hit. One scores more points if the cyclist lives in an upmarket area, such Water­kloof Ridge in Pretoria.

‘You should have seen the reaction of people over that,” he gasps. ‘The Satanism thing does not come close.”

He also infuriated residents of student town Potchefstroom by a column he wrote for Beeld during his stint as a columnist for the Afrikaans daily’s weekend supplement, By.

Maas’s disdain for the town comes from the days when he studied there. A contemporary of Kerkorrel, he too found the conservative Potchefstroom of the Eighties stifling and discovered the same conservatism in the town on his recent return while working at Aardklop. ‘I have a problem with authority,” he confesses. ‘I never took to Potchefstroom.”

Maas only lasted two weeks in a residence, before moving into his car for the remainder of his studies. His father refused to rent a flat for him, saying he had already paid for the residence.

Years later Maas decided to tackle a documentary on his deceased friend, Kerkorrel. Like most of his projects, the movie generated quite a debate in Afrikaans circles.

Yet despite his very public life, Maas remains an enigma. He is outspoken, but it is difficult to pin him down as a particular type.

‘People want to put me in a box,” he says. ‘Yet they struggle, because I am many things. People label me as liberal or agnostic, yet none of those labels can stick, because I am conservative on some issues, just as I have liberal view on others.”

Some believe Maas is simply looking for attention with his rants, while others say he is playing ­devil’s advocate. But Maas ­disagrees.

‘When I pen something, I have a steadfast belief in what I write, otherwise I would not write it,” he says.

For the moment he believes he is finished with Rapport and Beeld owners, Media 24. Instead Meerkat Media will focus on breathing new life into old favourites such as the children’s cult classic from the Eighties, Liewe Heksie. But there are no guarantees that he won’t try to take on some new holy cows in the future.