Parties slam Mail race-mongering

A REPORT in Britain’s Daily Mail warning of a possible race war after Nelson Mandela’s death has been widely condemned and dismissed.

South Africans from across the political spectrum criticised the report as “alarmist”, “appalling”, “malicious” and an insult to all races.

According to the report, which was published on Friday, there are “growing fears that a wave of violence will be unleashed against the white population” as Mandela’s death draws closer.

Citing the murders of white farmers by criminals as evidence of the beginning of Zimbabwe-style land grabs aimed at pushing white South Africans off their land, the newspaper said the phenomenon would escalate into a full-scale race war when Mandela died.

“Indeed, a disturbing number of whites are terrified that Mandela’s passing will lead to an outpouring of violence from black South Africans no longer contained by the sheer power of the great man’s presence,” writes the paper’s Andrew Malone.

He visited the racially exclusive Kleinfontein development, north of Pretoria, where high walls protect a 1 000-strong Afrikaner community, and described it as an example of how white Afrikaners are protecting themselves against black intruders.

The ANC, DA and the Solidarity trade union slammed the article.

ANC national spokesman Jackson Mthembu said the authors of such articles should note that Mandela had held no public office since stepping down as president in 1999 — and until now no harm had come to white South Africans.

“This is just malicious to harm the image of our country,” Mthembu said.

“White people have survived with Madiba not being in office. Nothing has happened to whites. They have not been thrown into the sea. ANC policies are the guiding principle. Those policies are for nation-building.

“Those policies are for reconciliation that says the country belongs to all those who live in it, black and white.”

DA national spokesman Mmusi Maimane called the article “reprehensible and morally repugnant”.

“I can’t find stronger words to say how appalling it is. It’s an insult against black Africans to suggest that that is the pent-up attitude black South Africans are living with,” Maimane said.

“It undermines the progress our country has made and, ultimately, it hurls an insult at Nelson Mandela who himself stood for reconciliation.”

Solidarity’s deputy general secretary, Dirk Hermann, said: “Our reaction is quite clear: there are no grounds for that.

“When Mandela dies, South Africa will go into a period of intense mourning and then we will continue as a nation.”