Four young Afrikaans men in the Free State could hardly have known that their now infamous video of a demeaning mock initiation of black university employees would be flashed on the world’s TV screens. It’s on a continuous news loop of CNN, and South African newspapers have reported on little else since the story broke on Tuesday.
The incident also serves as a reminder that many in South Africa continue to harbour racist attitudes. But most racists don’t go to the lengths these young men did, themselves products of the Fear Factor/YouTube/Jackass generation.
This was no YouTube tomfoolery, however, and is set apart by the degree of spite and malice displayed by the filmmakers. One of the students is heard to refer to the women employees as difebe (whores).
Meanwhile, two of the students apologised through their lawyer on Thursday. RC Malherbe and Schalk van der Merwe said they acted without malicious intent, and expressed sorrow for the embarrassment they might have caused any individual or group, including their parents.
“Messrs Malherbe and Van der Merwe … participated in the making of the film but remind their critics that they were and are students,” said their statement. They also denied that they had urinated on meat fed to the university cleaners.
“Although, as was intended at the time, it appears to viewers as if one of the persons urinated in the traditional brew which was prepared, it most certainly did not take place and a close study of the particular insert will confirm that the — totally harmless — liquid was squirted from a bottle,” the statement read.
The two men said the four university employees who featured in the film were not only loyal friends of the filmmakers but also of the inhabitants of Reitz hostel.
The University of the Free State (UFS) has given its legal department the go-ahead to draw up charges, which are expected to include assault and crimen injuria.
Meanwhile, the Freedom Front Plus has been accused of creating a conducive climate for the production of the video. The Mail & Guardian has established that the FF+ and its youth wing have been actively targeting the campuses of historically white institutions such as the UFS and the University of Pretoria, to campaign against racial integration.
Whatever the truth, the university must take responsibility for the incident. How many people had seen the video since it was produced five or six months ago? Why was the alarm not raised earlier? On the other hand, trade-union representatives have kept the employees featured in the video from speaking to the press — but why did said representatives not inform the women about their worker’s rights in the first place, which could have kept them from agreeing to the “initiation” in the first place?
Now that the video is being hosted by YouTube and other websites, it will never die — and the damage done to South Africa’s image on the world stage won’t fade quickly either.
| FULL SPEED AHEAD |
NOT SO FAST |
Mark Boucher
Wicketkeeper Boucher broke Ian Healy’s world record for the highest number of Test-match dismissals last year. He extended this record of dismissals to 413 before being briefly overtaken by Australia’s Adam Gilchrist this year, who has since retired from Test cricket. Boucher claimed five dismissals in the Proteas’ recent victory against Bangladesh, and has thus reclaimed the record, setting a new mark of 418 (399 catches and 19 stumpings). |
 Free State Four
“The four repugnant bastards” is how the Times has characterised the four students involved in making a racist mock-initiation video at the University of the Free State. The video appears to have been made in response to a policy of integration at the varsity’s hostels. It’s not exactly clear how the students will be brought to book, but bring it on. It’s time they did some squirming. |
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February 21 to 27
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8. Zuma must be allowed to succeed
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