The uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) will embark on a massive march in Durban on Wednesday amid a wave of criticism against DA federal chairperson Helen Zille for referring to the MKP and EFF as “dogs”.
Zille opened the floodgates of criticism against herself following her figurative comments earlier this month when she said the Government of National Unity (GNU) would not allow KZN “to be thrown to the dogs”.
March organiser Bheki Bishop said: “We are tired of these racists who use English to undermine us and then later claim that they were using figures of speech. Knowing the history of her racist past, we will challenge Zille until she publicly apologises.”
MKP regional co-ordinator Reggie Ngcobo said they had been granted permission to march by the eThekwini Municipality. The march will start at King Dinuzulu Park and proceed down Pixley kaSeme Street (West Street) to the Durban City Hall.
“We will bring the city to a complete standstill on Wednesday. Among us will be church organisations, community-based organisations and other political parties that have had enough of these racists. We won’t allow Zille to call us ‘dogs’.”
Zille’s full comment was: “We don’t want to hand KwaZulu-Natal to the MK and EFF. It will be a total disaster. We are not going to say the people of KZN can be thrown to the dogs.”
She was addressing the media on July 2 in Johannesburg after the Government of Provincial Unity (GPU) talks in Gauteng between her party, the DA, and the ANC collapsed. She said the collapse in Gauteng would not lead them to dump the GPU in KZN.
Ngcobo said EFF leader Julius Malema was dragged to court by the civil rights AfriForum Foundation over his controversial “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer” chant.
“Malema was persecuted for and hounded for singing a revolutionary song ‘Kill the Boer’. They even took him to court. We also want to do the same with Zille. We are tired of being treated as subhumans by the white people,” he said.
The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) upheld the Equality Court’s ruling in May that the “Kill the Boer, Kill the farmer” chant was not hate speech.
MKP organiser in eThekwini, Bongani Cele, said they were considering legal action against Zille.
“This is hate speech, and we will not take it lightly. We want Zille to be dragged to court for her racist remarks. We will not allow Zille to get away with this,” said Cele.
He said the outcry over Zille’s comment was justified.
“Our country is still very fragile, racially speaking. Using terms such as dogs to refer to other people is wrong and is provoking us as blacks,” he said.
Zille has remained steadfastly unfazed by the onslaught, maintaining that she used the term figuratively.
She described the outrage as being “manufactured”, adding that her statement was an idiom which was “standard English usage”.
Zille is no stranger to racial controversy. In 2012, the DA found itself dousing a raging racial flame after she referred to Eastern Cape pupils who moved to the Western Cape for better education as “refugees”.
Zille’s comments came as the party had just been engulfed in a racial incident involving its MP Renaldo Gouws, whose racist YouTube video was thrust into the public spotlight last month.
In the video, Gouws could be heard saying: “Alright, so there’s a couple of things I want to say. Kill the f***ing k****rs, kill all the f***ing n****rs. That’s all I gotta f***ing say. Kill all the k****rs! Kill all the f***ing n****rs.”
In his defence, the 41-year-old Eastern Cape DA member said he was “young and immature” and some videos dated back to 2010.
His party summarily suspended him pending a disciplinary hearing by the party’s federal legal commission.
The SA Human Rights Commission was also gunning for him.
-Daily News
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