The former director of Media and Communications at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), Mdu Lembede, says South Africans should reconcile or risk plunging the country into a civil war.
He has dismissed Belinda Magor’s demeaning and racist utterances saying they don’t represent the views of all white people. In her rant against the banning of pitbull terriers, Magor called for the killing and castration of black people. But Lembede says this should not be allowed to further divide the nation.
“There are more than 50 million South Africans, the utterances of one person should not determine the direction that we take as a people. So, if one white person says bad things about black people, we should not take it as if all whites are fighting all black or if a black gets on stage and says bad things about white people, then we throw our hands in the air and say we have gone back to pre-1994. No that’s not true, we have to move forward we can’t afford to be cut back by bigots.”
Azapo picket
The 60-year-old was arrested over the weekend and released on a warning for allegedly calling black people rapists and thieves and suggesting they should be banned and killed.
She allegedly made the comments amid calls for pitbulls to be banned following a number of attacks on young children.
A case of crimen-injura was opened against her and she is expected to appear in court in March next year after she was released on warning.
Azapo’s Gaontabele Nodoba said, “The picket is to basically raise our discomfort, our disapproval and our condemnation of the racist and discouraging and disrespectful remarks that she made against black people in general in particular black women and as Azapo, we say there is no place for racists in this country.”
