‘Racist’ festival slammed

Community leaders protest against ‘Afrikaner bias’ and perceived lack of diversity

WEST Coast community leaders are mobilising in protest against the upcoming Mykonos Festival in Langebaan, citing perceived racism, lack of diversity, transformation and exclusion of black artist as the root cause.

Locals have dubbed the line-up for the two-day festival, which takes place mid-December at the Mykonos Casino and Resort, as racist and exclusionary.

Leading the charge, Sammy Claasen, in a letter to the resort, aired concerns which Mykonos denied.

“We as locals in the West Coast region feel aggrieved by the organisers of the Mykonos Festivals’ continued marginalisation of our local and national black artists. We are unhappy with the blatant lack of opportunity for our black entrepreneurs and service providers in general during the annual Mykonos festival,” Claasen said.

Claasen, who is also the regional spokesman for the ANC in the West Coast, said they had noticed that 95 percent of the artists contracted by the Mykonos Festival’s organisers were white Afrikaner males. “This targeted marketing approach or trend only caters for a specific ‘Afrikaner elitist market’ at the expense of the coloured and African working class and middle class market. It smacks of exclusive racism and furthermore undermines the participation of local black artists, entrepreneurs and service providers,” he added. In the letter to the festival organisers, Claasen said the total procurement budget set aside for the festival would only benefit Afrikaners despite Mykonos’ “customer base” reflecting otherwise. Mykonos, in their response to the claims, said the Mykonos Festival “targets very specifically the Afrikaans market, which translates to a significant portion of customers of the demographic that patronises Mykonos Casino”.

“We at Tsogo Sun take pride in our level of transformation, as reflected by our Level 2 BBBEE status. Mykonos Casino in its own right is also proud of its Level 2 BBBEE status. Kindly note that our events and festivals are conceptualised around the prevalent demographic that frequents our properties,” the letter read.

The response, penned by Clive van Groeningen, director of operations and complex general manger – gaming, further stated the 2016 festival spent more than 50percent of their procurement spend on BEE suppliers, which was a significant growth on previous years.

Van Groeningen added some of the performers this year included Petra May; Dawid van de Merwe and Lloyd Cele, while the prime circle had 100 percent BEE certification. “Having said this, the lack of coloured Afrikaans performers is noted and we will continue trying to attract more of them to participate in the festival,” Van Groeningen added.

But community and business leaders were outraged with the Mykonos’ response. “I must stress our rejection of their excuse; we will not allow these ‘smoke screen festivals’ that actually promote only Afrikaner entertainment and tourism at the expense of diversity and multi-racial recreation, tourism and entertainment. This economic and marketing trend is totally unacceptable. We will fight this form of discrimination,” Claasen said.