Life now no beach for ‘holiday racist’

SOUTH Africa looked into its underbelly for the umpteenth time this week. Adam Catzavelos – in an act of unbelievable hubris – filmed himself on a Greek beach spouting his thoughts on life.

The response was immediate and notwithstanding our recent racist roadmap, particularly brutal. His family disowned him – and fired him – his sons’ upmarket private school banned him from the grounds and the clients his family firm supplied cut their ties. It would have been difficult to overshadow Catazavelos’s racist onanism – even in a fractured society such as ours – on any other week. Only one person could; Donald Trump, possibly one of the most egregious US presidents in that country’s proud history. His utterances, simultaneously facile and inflammatory, on the South African land question and the white farmer genocide were stupefying by their level of absolute ignorance – and indeed the fakest of fake news.

We still have a long walk to freedom in this country. There are many blind corners and disheartening dips to endure. The open festering sore that is race has never been properly cauterised. The land too is an issue that lies front and centre of every debate – because it is at the heart of racial inequality.

It will take real leadership though to resolve these issues because race and land are two of the most beloved subjects of the opportunists and ethnic-preneuers who thrive on fomenting hatred and division. Racism is a hot button for newspaper headlines and faux-outrage on social media, sadly allowing other societal outrages like rape and gender-based violence to slide under the radar.

We are a nation though of incredible resilience, despite our apparent cleavages. This too was evident this week in the immediate and brilliant #AdamCatzavelosChallenge and the unequivocal grass roots denunciation of Trump’s tweet.

We still have a very long way to go though.