'I was complicit in the situation. I told him to get counsel, to stay calm. ... I probably didnt tell him that it was racist,' said Nic. (Radio 702)
Adam Catzavelos’s older brother Nic said on Monday that Adam is not interested in politics nor is he a white supremacist.
Nic Catzavelos was on Eusebius McKaiser’s show on Radio 702, saying he wanted to set the record straight about Adam’s racism and the assumed racism of the whole Catzavelos family.
McKaiser was looking into the dynamics within the Catzavelos family and how they are dealing with Adam (39) following his 20-second-long video where he outed himself as a racist by describing an idyllic beach as “heaven on earth” because there was “not one k****r in sight”.
Adam was in Greece, where he will remain as he has “no immediate plans” to return to South Africa, City Press newspaper reported.
Since the video went viral last Tuesday, the family says it has lost its food company, St George Fine Foods, which has been around for the last twenty years. Nic had a share and a directorship at the Smokehouse restaurant in Braamfontein. He has since removed himself from the restaurant and will not take any compensation from the business.
Nic said Adam’s share in Fine Foods, which was dissolved, will become a trust for the employees of Fine Foods.
According to Nic, he was not one of the initial recipients of the video. He only learnt of the video when a panicked Adam called him for help.
During the interview, Nic told McKaiser that although the language Adam used was not heard during Catzavelos family dinners, Nic remembered his brother using the k-word four months ago.
According to Nic, Adam described the men who attacked him and his friends in the Drakensberg with the k-word.
“I was complicit in the situation. I told him to get counsel, to stay calm … I don’t remember the exact course of events. I probably didn’t tell him that it was racist,” said Nic, in answer to a question on how he responded following Adam’s Drakensberg trip.
“It’s obvious what was said in the video. He’s not interested politically. He’s not a white supremacist. He does not come from a family of hardcore racists.”
“Adam needs to look deeply in himself. You cannot be a half-racist. You have to understand that you come from an unbelievable place of privilege,” Nic continued.
“Once again, I speak from the white perspective, white people need to look from their privilege. I have done a lot of work around this issue. Through this issue, I have seen my complicity in not saying anything. We have to take responsibility for the past and our present. We have to be honest with ourselves,” said Nic.
“I was born in the 1970s. I served in the South African Defence Force. I have to work through a lot of things. There are things that lie so deep that I have to be aware of and be vigilant of,” Nic said.
Last Wednesday, the Economic Freedom Fighters in Gauteng opened a criminal case against Adam, and the South African Human Rights Commission has said it would investigate the matter.
Listen to the full broadcast below:
This headline was amended to facilitate clarity