South African President Jacob Zuma is under official investigation for using hate speech against a man who died 338 years ago.
Complaints have been lodged with a human rights watchdog after Zuma blamed South Africa’s ills on the nation’s first white settler, Jan van Riebeeck, a Dutch administrator who opened the way for European colonization.
“You must remember that a man called Jan van Riebeeck arrived here on April 6, 1652, and that was the start of the trouble in this country,” Zuma reportedly told a recent fundraising dinner in Cape Town. “What followed were numerous struggles, wars, deaths, the seizure of land and the deprivation of the indigenous peoples’ political and economic power.”
Photo: Reuters
Van Riebeeck’s arrival “disrupted South Africa’s social cohesion, repressed people and caused wars,” he said.
The comments, and the backlash against them, illustrate how a tormented racial history dating back centuries is in constant tension with the aspiration of a “rainbow nation.”
The opposition Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) party, representing Afrikaner interests, accused Zuma of causing polarization and lodged a charge of hate speech with the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC).
FF Plus leader Pieter Mulder said Zuma was resorting to “scapegoat politics.”
Mulder told parliament on Wednesday last week: “The honorable president says a man called Jan van Riebeeck arrived here, and that was the start of problems in the country. I can prove the president is wrong. But what did he say in plain language? He said that when white people arrived here the trouble started. What is the understanding of ordinary ANC [African National Congress] supporters? They understand that if one gets rid of the white man, all problems are solved. Get rid of the cockroaches and all problems go away.”
The commission confirmed that it is investigating the FF Plus complaint and two other complaints of hate speech against Zuma.
“We have accepted these complaints and have started with the investigation,” commission spokesperson Isaac Mangena said.
FW de Klerk Foundation executive director Dave Steward wrote last month: “The anti-Jan van Riebeeck campaign is yet another example of the disturbing and increasingly overt anti-white posture of the president and the ANC. Indeed, the ANC’s core program, its ‘national democratic revolution,’ is the continuation and completion of its ‘liberation’ struggle against white South Africans whom it views as ‘antagonists.’”
Zuma stuck to his guns on Thursday last week during a state of the nation debate.
“It is history,” he told parliament in Cape Town. “When I said that Jan van Riebeeck landed here our problems began … it’s a historic fact. Wars happened, people were removed. It is written down, it’s not me concocting it.”
However, Zuma spoke of his commitment to former South African president Nelson Mandela’s vision of a non-racial society, adding that there had never been an intention to drive white people out of the country.
“I’ll never be racist. I fight against those who suppress minorities,” he said.
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