Minister of Sport and DA leader must apologise for Ashwin Willemse incident

20 June 2018  

The FF Plus welcomes adv Vincent Maleka’s finding that there was no racism involved in the incident where Ashwin Willemse walked out of one of the SuperSport studios during a live broadcast last month.

The racial tension in South Africa is at an all-time high and people must refrain from attributing incidents where people of different races are involved to racism.

The Minister of Sport, Tokozile Xasa, and the leader of the DA, Mr Mmusi Maimane, immediately labelled the incident as racism to the detriment of Willemse’s fellow presenters, Naas Botha and Nick Mallett.

Mr Maimane and Minister Xasa’s behaviour was extremely irresponsible as they labelled Botha and Mallet racists before they had all the facts. It goes to show that they themselves are obsessed with race and they do not only owe Botha and Mallett an apology, but also the whole of South Africa.

It is to be expected that the ANC would make such shameful statements, but it is now clear that the DA wants to use the same narrative of white privilege versus black disadvantage in the runup to next year’s elections.

Political leaders ought to be extra careful when it comes to the issue of racism and must not try and spot racism in everything.

The FF Plus is waiting for Mr Maimane and Minister Xasa’s apologies.

Issued by Pieter Groenewald, FF Plus leader, 20 June 2018