By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK | 24 June 2024 (IDN) — A recently sworn-in member of the South African parliament has been suspended for using racist language against Black people.
The suspension of Renaldo Gouws of the white-led Democratic Alliance (DA) highlights the uneasy alliance between the DA and its governing coalition with the African National Congress (ANC), the former liberation movement that fought apartheid in South Africa.
“The DA has established that the video, in which Renaldo Gouws uses execrable language, is in fact genuine and not a fake as initially suspected,” the party said.
“The DA federal executive has therefore suspended Mr Gouws with immediate effect.”
A clip of Gouws saying “Kill all the kaffirs” – a racial slur for Black people – and then repeating the phrase using a swear word and the N-word, went viral online.
“Black people are discriminating against white people and the Black people are singing about killing white people,” Gouws, a YouTuber said in the video, referring to Julius Malema, leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters and one-time ANC youth leader, singing the anti-apartheid song “Shoot The Boer.”
“So in essence this is a new apartheid and I’m the sufferer of that,” Gouws said in the clip, which appears to be from 2010.
Other viral video clips include Gouws using the homophobic slur “fag” and in a 2024 livestream of Presidential Ramaphosa’s state of the nation address, Gouws mocks a traditional praise singer, using a string of babble to imitate her Siswati language.
South Africa’s Human Rights Commission has also said it will be taking legal action against him in the Equality Court.
In the now-deleted video, posted in 2010, Gouws appears to call for killing Black people before saying that his statement is intended to make an analogy with Black activists singing a decades-old anti-apartheid chant that has stirred controversy in recent years.
The controversy comes as President Cyril Ramaphosa warned of the dangers of ‘toxic cleavages’ in a speech after his inauguration for a second term as president.
“We have made great strides in building a new society,” Ramaphosa told an audience.
.“And yet despite this progress our society remains deeply unequal and highly polarized. There are toxic cleavages, often incipient social fragmentation, that can only turn into instability.”
These still-sharp divisions included those between Black and white South Africans and people with jobs and the unemployed, Ramaphosa said. More than four in 10 South Africans are out of work and, 30 years after the first fully democratic elections, the country’s deep economic inequality still plays out largely along racial lines.
Finally, Dr. Saths Cooper, President of the Pan African Psychology Union, said it was disturbing to see DA representatives, including their leadership, initially defending Gouws when the videos surfaced online. He added that if the situation were reversed and a person of color made similar statements, the DA would likely respond differently.
“He’s racist. He does not need to remain in our political landscape and certainly not in the government of national unity … To say he was a student is rubbish because he was already well into his twenties when the video was made.”
“He’s made other horrific videos. Surely their checks should’ve brought this out and stated it was fake and it must be AI-generated [speaks volumes] … He’s a blatant example of the worst white racism that we thought we got rid of 30 years ago”.
Dr. Saths Cooper, President of the Pan African Psychology Union, added that it was disturbing to see DA representatives, including their leadership, defending Gouws when the videos first surfaced online. He added that if the situation were reversed and a person of color made similar statements, the DA would likely respond differently.
Moreover, the DA representatives’ failure to explicitly call Gouws’ remarks racist, instead attempting to redefine his comments, has also drawn significant criticism and distrust.
“He’s racist. He does not need to remain in our political landscape and certainly not in the government of national unity,” Cooper said … “To say he was a student is rubbish because he was already well into his twenties, “when the video was made.”
“He’s made other horrific videos. Surely their checks should’ve brought this out and stated it was fake and it must be AI-generated [speaks volumes] … He’s a blatant example of the worst white racism that we thought we got rid of 30 years ago”. [IDN-InDepthNews]
Photo: R. Gouws. Source: Global Information Network
