Stop using race as excuse

A LL the hullabaloo over the eleventh hour postponement of last weekend’s Bollywood concert at the Moses Mabhida Stadium needs to be put into proper perspective before it all blows up unnecessarily into a race issue. The facts are fairly straightforward. The concert, we are being told, had to be postponed simply because of glitches over visas for certain cast members arriving from India. It’s a risk that all impresarios take when organising events of this nature. If all goes according to plan and there are no glitches, the impresario is happy and smiling all the way to the bank. If it doesn’t, they must face the consequences. By being forced to put off the event at the last minute, the promoters, Airport Times, have caused huge inconvenience to thousands of fans who had bought tickets costing up to R2 000 to be entertained by Bollywood stars like Hrithik Roshan, Madhuri Dixit, Ankit Tiwari and Sonakshi Sinha. Many fans are livid because they had taken flights from Johannesburg and Cape Town to attend the concert and are now out of pocket. Although the organisers say tickets for the show would still be valid for the rescheduled date, many fans are not amused and claim the postponement was not communicated properly. What further complicated matters was the attempt by the organisers to racialise the issue by accusing the municipality of failing to support “Indian events”. A spokeswoman for the organisers claimed she had asked several municipal officials for financial assistance and was told no funds were available. “The support request process was initiated in January and all we got from the council was that there was no budget. If there is no budget, how does the city make millions available for non-Indian events?” she asked. This sounds like a typical red herring to detract from the real reason the concert had to be postponed – a glitch over visas, nothing more and nothing less. Durban Tourism head Phillip Sithole has given a reasonable explanation why the organisers’ request for funding could not be accommodated. The request was firstly too late, he explained, and second, there was no budget available. He was, however, sympathetic to the organisers’ misfortunes and said he was prepared to review the situation now that the concert had been postponed, provided there were funds available. If promoters wish to win friends and influence people in the municipality in future, they should avoid using the race card unnecessarily. Be careful – it could backfire on you.