EFF members trash Clicks stores over ‘racist’ advert
Shortly after health and cosmetics retailer Clicks failed to persuade a court to interdict the EFF from its nationwide antiracism protest at the company’s outlets on Monday, people clad in the party’s regalia trashed a store in Komani.
Other Clicks stores in East London, Mdantsane and Makhanda were forced to close as the EFF embarked on a nationwide campaign to shut the retailers’ outlets as anger mounted over a racially charged advertisement the company had placed on its website.
The hair-care advert described the hair of two African women as “dry, damaged frizzy and dull” while describing two white woman’s hair as “colourtreated, fine, flat and normal”.
Monday’s protests took place after a social media uproar at the weekend which resulted in Clicks taking the advert down.
The company apologised, but the EFF has demanded that those responsible for the advertisement be fired.
Weighing in on the EFF campaign, former public protector Thuli Madonsela said the violence that accompanied the protest undermined the protesters’ cause.
Madonsela said protest was the language of the unheard and violence was the language of the disempowered. “Are we going to have people die possibly over hair?
“Also, logically Clicks is a trading company. Nobody could suggest Clicks is going out of its way to insult its customers,” she said, adding parliament should call Clicks’ management to explain themselves.
In the East London CBD, police responded swiftly to keep a group of EFF supporters in check when they protested outside branches of the retailer in Oxford Street and at Gillwell Mall.
The group of about 40 people protested outside the stores, carrying placards saying “racists must fall”, and demanded the outlets be shut. Customers in both stores rushed out as soon as the EFF members arrived.
Staff were seen locked inside, while police stood at the entrance to monitor the situation. The stores closed as soon as the protesters entered the shops.
A handful of red berets stood outside the Mdantsane Zone 6 mall store before agreeing with management that the elderly and frail would be allowed in to collect their prescriptions.
In Makhanda, only five people showed up but the store had not opened when the Dispatch visited it in the morning.
In a letter to the EFF, Clicks lawyer Anele Ngidi wrote that the advert had not been commissioned by Clicks but was part of a Unilever and/or TRESemmé campaign, which had since been abandoned.
The EFF issued a strongly worded, two-sentence reply on Sunday. “You racist lawyers of Pravin Jamnandas Gordhan and your racist client, Clicks, can go to the nearest hell.”
“Black dignity or death, we shall overcome.”
On Sunday night, EFF Leader Julius Malema called on the party’s members to “attack”. And true to form in Komani, EFF supporters went on a rampage when they stormed into the Cathcart Road Clicks, trashing aisles, before they proceeded to the retailer’s Nonesi Mall branch.
Provincial chair Yazini Tetyana led the red berets in their protest. While about 15 EFF supporters vandalised the store, they shouted “enough is enough with this racism”.
Tetyana called for whoever was responsible for the advert to “face jail time” and labelled Clicks a “racist brand”.
“We will continue with this programme the whole week because we want the company to lose money for what they did.”
Tetyana said had the advert been ignored, white people would continue undermining and belittling black people in “their own country”. “We want all those involved in the marketing strategy that came up with the racist advert removed from Clicks as a company and be punishable by law.”
Asked whether he thought the workers would also suffer financial constraints from a weeklong closure of the store, Tetyana said: “Any revolution would have casualties before matters of concern are addressed.”
Nonesi Mall customers ran out of the centre as EFF members arrived. Some senior citizens were shoved to the ground. No-one was seriously injured.
Komani police spokesperson Captain Namhla Mdleleni said a case of destruction to property had been reported at the Mlungisi police station.
Further afield, the Clicks branch in Lemon Tree mall in Alberton, Ekurhuleni was vandalised and torched, closing the whole mall.
The DA has called on the police to charge Malema for inciting violence. Additional reporting by Bhongo Jacob, Mkhululi Ndamase, Adrienne Carlisle, Ernest Mabuza and Iavan Pijoos