Don’t take hate speech lightly

ELVIS Ramosebudi appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court yesterday. The 33-year-old was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of plotting to murder the South Africans whom he believed had benefited from state capture.

There are 19 people on his list, apparently. They range from cabinet ministers to senior managers of state-owned enterprises. He was arrested after going around to find sponsors for his awkwardly named Anti-State Capture Death Squad Alliance.

The timing, the naming and the planning (or lack thereof) are so flawed, contrived and bizarre, that cynics are wondering – now that the expensive and discredited Bell Pottinger PR firm has dropped its Gupta family contract and fled – if this isn’t a cheaper bid to deflect attention from our increasingly beleaguered President Jacob Zuma and the Saxonwold family.

Magistrate Vincent Ratshibvumo was taken aback. He asked Ramosebudi if he had been treated for a mental illness. It’s a fair question.

But equally no threat of terror can be taken lightly. South Africa has a record of lone wolves – of dubious mental stability and even intelligence – wreaking havoc: Dimitri Tsafendas, Barend Strydom and Johann Nel are just three who came to mind. Lone killers with no perceivable link to any recognisable political organisation.

The Hawks and the National Prosecuting Authority have more than enough challenges as it is but neither dare take the case, nor the apparent companion, Anti-White Monopoly Capitalists Regime, lightly – the stakes are too high.

But, equally, if the court finds Ramosebudi to be a deranged Walter Mitty, he has to be put away. We cannot have people fomenting hatred.

We have far too many politicians doing that .