DOCUMENTS

Zelda la Grange attacked for her racial impertinence

Politicsweb |
18 January 2015
Nelson Mandela's former PA's comments about whites being made to feel unwelcome in SA unleashes torrent of race-hate on social media

A series of Tweets on Friday by Nelson Mandela's former personal assistant, Zelda la Grange, complaining that whites were being made to feel unwelcome in South Africa triggered a torrent of racial abuse on Twitter over weekend.

ANC President Jacob Zuma recently remarked that all South Africa's troubles began "in 1652 when Jan van Riebeeck landed in the Cape." The decision by the City of Cape Town to rename a small stretch of the N1 after former National Party President FW de Klerk has also provoked sustained criticism.

The attack on Van Riebeeck, the founder of the Dutch settlement in South Africa, touches on Afrikaner sensitivities as it suggests that the ANC has a basic problem with the very presence of whites in South Africa - rather than with the specific wrongdoings committed by past regimes.

Equally, the attempt to deny De Klerk some small recognition for his role in dismantling apartheid, unbanning the liberation movements, and launching the multi-party constitutional negotiations that led to the current dispensation, is perceived, by many, as an effort to negate the role played by the majority of white South Africans in the transition to non-racial democracy.

In response La Grange, who last year published a memoir of her relationship with Mandela, tweeted (under the name "Zelda van Riebeeck") that these controversies:

And:

And:

She also said that De Klerk, for all his faults, had chosen the path of negotiation in 1990, rather than trying to use the might of the South African military to suppress opposition and hold onto power (as Robert Mugabe has done, with ANC support, in Zimbabwe):

There is currently a countervailing sensitivity on the part of South Africa's new racial elite to any manifestation of white cheekiness (forgetting their place in the new order) and ingratitude (at the ANC tolerance of them). This has recently been sharpened by the electricity supply crisis - given that Eskom was once the poster-child of the ANC government's aggressive Employment Equity and Black Economic Empowerment Policies.

La Grange's remarks thus provoked a predictable firestorm of outrage from intellectuals and ANC princelings.  

Minister Malusi Gigaba's spokesperson, Mayihlome Tshwete, directly accused La Grange of racism, stating:

He also suggested that Mandela had failed in trying to reach out to La Grange:

He also jokingly suggested that News24 would report on the controversy in a racially obscene manner:

702 talk show host Redi Tlhabi stated that La Grange's complaints about being made to feel unwelcome by anti-white political rhetoric meant that she had failed to internalise a South African identity. She tweeted:

Shaka Sisulu meanwhile stated:

Kay Sexwale commented:

In a subsequent tweet Sexwale told white South Africans that they could never be considered Africans:

In a series of tweets the lawyer, intellectual, and once prominent Mbeki-ite Christine Qunta warned of a looming explosion of black anger and violence against white South Africans. She commented:

And:

And:

And:

She concluded by stating:

In reaction to La Grange's subsequent apology, and effort to explain her remarks, Sisonke Msimang tweeted:

Opinion and Analysis Editor at Independent Media Vukani Mde also commented:

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