Eugene Terre’Blanche is in trouble once again. A comment he made in Pretoria over the weekend has been reported to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) which has confirmed that it is currently with their legal services department.
Terre’Blanche, leader of the fringe Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), allegedly pointed at the statue of Chief Tshwane at the old Pretoria City Hall and referred to him as an “apie”.
Needless to say that if this is the case then a complaint of racism must be upheld against this gentleman.
Anyone with half a brain is aware of the connotations being suggested by someone who draws a link between a black person and a monkey.
Accordingly if Terre’Blanche has done so the SAHRC must hand him his head on a plate.
The complaint was made by an official from the department of communications, Panyaza Lesufi. He was supported by a number of people who felt outraged by this and other conduct displayed by Terre’Blanche and members of the AWB.
According to a report in City Press, AWB supporters have been declaring that they “hate[d] kaffirs”.
Lesufi included this in his complaint to the commission, urging it to “appropriately sanction” Terre’Blanche and these members.
In addition the SAHRC has been asked to investigate whether Terre’Blanche’s remark is a violation of his parole conditions.
We can wax lyrical on this one, if Terre’Blanche is guilty then he gets what he deserves and that must be plenty.
You wuld be surprised to learn how many white South Africans agree with him. You only have to consider the journalist who reported on his diatribes about two moths ago and, feeling endeared to him after being affectonately refered to as “meisiekind’, she described him as “sad” and I coul not help feeling that she did not fully disagree with him.
Just you wiay,you will see many people commenting here and trying to trivialise the whole issue.
Bottom line is it’s hate speech and I agree with you completely. The AWB should not be able to continue with its blatantly racist practices. It is an insult to other political parties and the democratic political system.
This goes to proof how racist our media with its commentators are. The racist remarks by Eugene were made on Thursday last week but its only today that we can comment on the isse. I’m definately sure if it was Malema the issue would have been a headline news last Friday.
AWB has a right to fight for what they believe in as long as it is in line with the constitution. Its fine if the hate black people they don’t have obligation to like them anyway but to call them K*** it another thing.
As an African descendant myself I can’t buy conservative whites to like me. I’m happy as I am and would not continuosly vilify blacks people in order to be like by whites as a person who is “not like them.”
Some poepols just can’t be rehabilitated. Throw him back in jail.
“Anyone with half a brain is aware of the connotations being suggested by someone who draws a link between a black person and a monkey.”
I disagree. The assumption is that black people were seen as ‘less-evolved’, and are therefore closer to monkeys than white people are.
This is patently false. We’re all part of the human race and we’re all exactly the same genetic distance from monkeys as each other. Oom Eugene is showing his ignorance. Anyone who believes that black people are more monkey-like than anyone else is being just as ignorant.
The response to Oom Eugene should not be shrill and offended. What good does that do? Taking him to court only lends extra weight to his ridiculous comments.
Leave him alone and let him wither in solitude.
My next-door neighbour is mentally challenged and, not being fit for employment, receives a government pension. When he makes “unfortunate” remarks we don’t hie ourselves off to court and fuss about the problem. Similarliy any person with the Tourettes syndrome should be treated with proper understanding.
Poor Eugene Terre’blanche appears to have a similar mental problem. I imagine that this is aggravated when members of his coterie insist on competing with each other [while ensuring that a media representative is within earshot] to see which of them are able to provoke poor Eugene into the most outrageous utterance.
Sad to say, this is what some people regard as the ultimate in humour!
Oh my goodness! What has the old voortrekker done now? It cant be racism because that means setting one (colour) of human being off against another human being. On the presumption that the human family consists of different, not equal, races. My wife is a tiger when it comes to something she wants and she does not get it. And rightly so, everyone fights for his/her own rights. Ah! but comparing my son with a monkey when he acts stupid is racism? I might be insulting the monkey who, in the animal world could be ranked higher than the lion, unless he is stupid of course. An orang-utan vagely looks like a human being and can even act the part. But he is an ape in his own right albeit an intelligent one. I think this is a case for Animal Welfare and not the SAHRC who have enough on their plate with real cases of racism. Let the man call the chief an apie if he wants: we all know the difference and won’t make such a stupid mistake. He might also have meant that the statue made the chief look like an apie. Then we need to go for the sculptor of course. Can we get mor rediculous?
Stadig oor die klippe, boetman.
As much as I find Eugene Terreblanche an embarrassment and a liability to me as a fellow Afrikaner, I think you are too quick off the mark. Hold back the knife until after the findings of the HRC.
Tony Ehrenreich was cleared by the SAHRC on the following statement – Rawsonville false accusations against farmers: How does this compare to ET alleged comment. (like to have a reply – I do not support ET philosophies
Ehrenreich told the gathering: “We are here today to declare war, we are opposed to violence, but if that’s what it takes to push bad farmers in the right direction we must smash them. If farmers continue, like mad dogs, to violate the rights of our farm workers then we have to beat them. However, this is in the last resort. They will sh*t if they don’t stop. There is already blood on the farm workers unless this stops, there will be blood on the farmers of these farms. We will grab the land and give it to the rightful owners”.
The allegations against the farmers were later found to have untruthful.
Another example:
Meeko’s hate speech was quoted in the media as saying that University of the Free State rector Jonathan Jansen should be “shot and killed” because “he is a racist “.
I have been calling for ignoring mr Malema’s frequent racially motivated statements.
I will call to do the same for Mr Terreblanche. I have seldom admired him for what he said, but one must admit that he always says it well. His flowery language presented with passion and eloquence is an amusement for the ear.
Compare it with listening to an Italian opera and enjoying the music and the acting without understanding what they are saying.
..and calling someone a monkey? What the heck. My wife used to call my little baby son a “monkey” many times. It was a term of endearment. Maybe ET has turned around 180 degrees and likes the Tshwane chief.
Keep smiling, see some humour instead of perpetuating this Calvinistic “somber” outlook on life.
I like ET as I like Malema.
Joe Slovo liked to bait people like Terreblanche who saw blacks as being closer to apes than whites by asking them why was it then that whites had so much more body hair.
Pieter – The news wires (where I saw the story)only carried it yesterday.
The item was posted by me yesterday and put on today by the eds.
We can’t go faster than that.
City Press did have it up on the weekend. I just never saw it.
Rolux when Malema et al go off half-cocked we let them have it.
There has to be a level playing field.
Andre – If Ehrenreich told the gathering what you quote and was cleared then I suggest the SAHRC be probed.
That would be ridiculous.
This does not clear Terre’blanche or the AWB if they did make those statements.
It just means that the SAHRC needs looking at.
Traps,
Congratulations you have written a blog on Eugene Terreblanche. However, Terreblanche, has already paid a price for his racism. We should not pick on him.
There are many sophisticated covet AWB members that are so “undercover” that they themselves do not know how far better they advance the aims and objectives of AWB. You only have to read your blogs and TL as well as some of the commentary that is written on the blogs. There are always inherent themes of white supremacy coupled with black inferiority expressed in coded language.
Here are the encryption keys:
WHITE = DA = Skilled = Modern = integrity = colourblind
BLACK = ANC = Incompetent = Barbaric = corrupt = racists.
The only difference about Terreblanche is that he did not get the above memo so his hate speech is crude. So let Terreblanche go.
Mr Terreblanche’s statement is an absolute disgrace. There is no place for racism in the new SA. It is totally unacceptable.
And as expected the DA, Afriforum, Solidarity and Freedom Front Plus have all maintained a thunderous silence regarding the matter. It makes you wonder.
Instead the DA is busy attacking the Affirmative Action policy.
So typical
A level playing field you say Mr Trapido? Perhaps I am the only one here that understands Afrikaans, but when something is referred to with a verkleinwoord, then it is almost impossible that it’s an insult. This is profiling. Because he was a racist in the past, he must be one now? You liberals make me sick.
Terre’blanche is a horrible man but must be free to say what he likes if this country is to be free. If he was jailed for this what next? Jailing someone for insulting the president? Speaking out against government policy? Censorship will never do.
“I do not agree with a word you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” – Voltaire.
This terreblanche is nothing more than unstable trouble maker and in my opinion to discusse his nonsense controversial speeches is his only aim that he feel that he is an important figure while he is totaly not. Although i am totaly with the freedom of speech princible but at least this man and his bunch of followers should be baned from using public places like the city hall for there racist and outdated meetings.
Just cart him off and put him away. Easy. And then use it as precedent for other morons who insult others and refer to them as cockroaches and call for them to be erased.
If so many whites, Pip, are so fond of ET, why then are they not all clamouring in support of him instead of shrugging and going ‘who cares, put him away, leave him, what an idiot’?
Chief Tshwane is a figment of the ANC cultural commisariat’s fertile imagination to create a culture and history where none exists. They are creating myths and legends in the same way as Josef Goebels did for the Nazis and the Broeders did for the NP.
Please leave ET alone. He had a terrible head injury when he fell off his horse and it still effects him.
See! Just listen to Benzol.
” It just means that the SAHRC needs looking at.”
BTW – “Rooi nek” and “Souties” has a “racist” implication as well. I have endured that since 1948.
Can I go to the SAHRC now for past injustices ?
The big picture people – we are becoming pathetic adults with kindergarten name calling – and I DO include myself.
I get provoked and go off at a tangent.
I hereby apologise freely for my past derogatory remarks.
Anyone join me ?
United we stand – divided we fall is my new mantra Traps. I do not mean the ineffectual “hold hands.”
We need public debate and to act on our values and beliefs by voting accordingly. Or do we allow BULLIES to run wild ?
Hmmm…. Surely what he said was politically incorrect, but doesn’t he have the same “freedom of speech” which Malema so vigorously abuse as well?
Not that I’m defending him, I think this is a purely a case of what goes for the goose goes for the gander.
But alas, that will never happen or I highly doubt it will because the ANC in its current state seems incapable of defending there own charter,freedom and rights if it’s one of they’re own that prosecuted.
My point being, that its always only the white man that gets painted as a racist, its seems as though the black man is incappable of racism and that all those who hate whites are still being pacified into believing that they’re doing so is just due to the fact that apartheid neglected them, which might have been fair in 1997 but since the 14 years of democracy passed and its time that these individuals start taking responsibility for they’re own lives and action.
Mr. Terre’Blanche has not changed, nor have his followers. But somehow, ten years ago, he was considered a pathetic joke of no significance and what he said or did was ignored. Now he is taken sufficiently seriously for the Human Rights Commission (itself a pathetic joke of no significance in my view) to organise a publicity stunt around him.
I think this country is gradually reverting to racist type.
Mike Francis – Credited to Voltaire but was it his? Read the debates they’re very interesting.
Martinus – Day in and day out I get hammered for picking on black leaders. I then tackle a white leader and straight away I’m a liberal picking on ET.
Nice to know that South Africans are colour blind.
Are you suggesting that if he said those things he shouldn’t be punished?
If you are I hope you don’t take issue when Malema has a go.
@Farouk:”…..but at least this man and his bunch of followers should be baned from using public places like the city hall for there racist and outdated meetings”.
Why? don’t you like what he says?? or what??
I don’t like what Malema says most of the time. should I ask for a ban on his presentations? Or restrict him where to spit his utterances?
If I don’t like what you write on this forum, should I ask the editor to ban you from this forum??
Please stop taking all these utterances too seriously, specially those of absolute minority groups as the AWB.
Next issue: the police commissioner finds an old Afrikaner flag on the desk of a Transnet employee. WOW!!! Another crime against humanity, callings for her head?
Jez…people, grow up and live with your history.
Chief Tshwane is a figment of the ANC cultural commisariat’s fertile imagination to create a culture and history where none exists. They are creating myths and legends in the same way as Josef Goebels did for the Nazis and the Broeders did for the NP.
I agree Traps, consistency must be applied. Juju was taken to the SAHRC and the same should be applied to ET. If it means he should go back to jail, then by all means!
As a black person I don’t find being called a monkey a term of endearment!
@Traps: “Are you suggesting that if he said those things he shouldn’t be punished?
If you are I hope you don’t take issue when Malema has a go”
Precisely my comment. Thanks.
The worst insult Malema used is to called whites “racists” especially Hellen Zille which is not acceptable and people are right to call for his head. Similary, whites genberally called black people idiots, blind loyalists, AA, BEE and all sort of derogatory words.
But to call black people ‘apie’ or ‘K***’ is tantamount to declaring a war between the races.
This just proves that if a white says anything anti black, the masses bay for blood. However, blacks can say what they like about whom they like, and it gets laughed off.
Someone help out a foreign reader: is his speech not constitutionally protected, however appalling it may be? Can people be incarcerated for using racist slurs?
I have quoted it before but it’s just too tempting to pass up the opportunity to quote it again: “Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool that to open it and resolve all doubt”. ET should take cognizance of it and probably some of us on the blog too! Comparing his insulting comment to a term of endearment you may use for your child or grandchild! Stating that if it has a small “a” then it’s not an insult! What did ET pronounce at the time that he was saying it without a capital letter? And I guess his supportive audience sniggered or laughed out loud at the comparison? Why do we think it is okay to have fun at someone else’s expense? I don’t get it. If people are hurt and fractured by our utterances, it is not funny – just uneducated and in poor taste. In the end these are simply bullying tactics and bullies are almost always weak and cowardly. In the end this reflects on ET and not on the subject/s of his scorn ~ doesn’t make it less inflammatory or hurtful though. It’s just inexcusable!
Ag Pieter, ‘apie’ is really a term of endearment but the context in this case is used to make it sound racist. Nobody really knows what a racist is: it means different things to different people. What people call you is not a refelection on you but on them. Remember the Spanish Queen who called the freedom fighters of the low countries who were trying to gain independence, ‘beggars’ (geux). She meant it to be a derogatory term, a ‘skeldwoord’. Lo and behold the selfsame ‘geux’ took the term as a badge of honour, which it is till today. No HRC was ever involved. The rainbow nation must still learn to live with itself: only then will the sharp and raw edges of taking everything so deadly serious wear off. Relax!
Mike you surprise me. For all your grandstanding over the years about freedoms including that of speech I would think that you would support the Oomie until he was proven guilty
To be frank, like Malema they say it as they see it. Both claim not to be racists. Both have huge unvoiced support.
The difference between the two is that Malema is a practicing President who has not learned to be hugely ambiguous when talking.
Oomie’s every word is analysed to the point where anything he says is deemed to be racist. So let them Fluff and Puff in competition to each other.
There is a lot to be learned by gauging each support base. If we hear too loud a cheer in the Malema camp we know what the whites are in for. Then conversely we will know what the future black government is up against with Oomie and his followers. We must learn from the Nats. To suppress freedom of public speech means that we never know how the opposition thinks.
Here’s a thought, just shows how safe the Panyaza Lesufi felt in that racist crowd or does he rely on hearsay for a largely unreliable press?
@Benzol i got your point but while you didn`t like my comment you didn`t offend or call me what so ever. My point is if any person is against what malema is saying which i do then ET is giving malema more ground than he dream of to prove to the majority of ANC supporters that he is 100% right in his opinions. As you said Benzol we must grow up but then we must look forward to our future and baried our historical diffrences which will take a lot of effort but south africa deserve it from us as the first real democracy generation.
Cherish your freedom of speech lest it slowly slip from your grasp. If you find yourself having whispered conversations in your own house or office, you will know that it is already too late.
Hugh – do you really think ET has a “huge unvoiced support”? I think he probably has very little support voiced or unvoiced. And I think Ju Ju has a huge voiced support and lots of support as yet unvoiced publically – more than is comfortable for me anyway.
James Mashele: Good on you!
Jon Story: Good on you!
Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me! They do, though, signal a complete lack of couth and common decency.
I have been called any number of names in my life and I often call my son names though, within the family environment he usually takes it utterly for granted that I’m just being funny.
I’m sure we’ve all been called names along the way and survived. More worrying is that we are all now so neurotic about it.
I don’t like what ET said. He should have kept his trap (see, a name…) shut, but I equally dislike JM’s common calls to arms. At least we know that ET will never rule us…
“Anyone with half a brain is aware of the connotations being suggested by someone who draws a link between a black person and a monkey.”
Don’t you mean “a person and a monkey” ???
I wish someone could get Terri and JuJu into a “blabber ring”, i.e. Bebra patta’s show…with mean toungue gloves off and let them do it to each other “skin to skin”.
It should be interesting to catch such discussion on national TV so that we can have more political comedy. Terri needs to trace his ancestors back to Dutchland…seriously. He is like a poodle waging war at a bull terrier that has already recognised that it will get itself into troubly just with one bite on that peanut brain that is full of spite and anger.
@Rose:”Comparing his insulting comment to a term of endearment you may use for your child or grandchild! Stating that if it has a small “a” then it’s not an insult!”
Look in the mirror and start smiling at yourself.
@Farouk: “ET is giving malema more ground than he dream of…”
You are right, but “publicity” is in the hands of the media. Anything controversial is headline news, sells and….get a response. Some I can laugh off, some I take seriously.
“you didn`t offend or call me what so ever….”
)
My upbringing does not allow for that and my English vocabulary is insufficient