Anti-Indian crusader vows to defy court ban on inciting racial hatred
CONTROVERSIAL businessman Phumlani Mfeka has vowed to defy the court order prohibiting him from inciting racial hatred against the Indian community.
This week, the High Court in Pietermaritzburg ordered Mfeka to remove all his racist remarks from his Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook or any other accounts. He has until November 3 to respond to the interdict.
Mfeka was taken to court by the KwaZulu-Natal government after he had sent a threatening text message to human settlements MEC Ravi Pillay last week.
Community safety and liaison MEC Willies Mchunu said, in an affidavit supported by Pillay, that Mfeka’s conduct was an incitement to violence against Indians and could result in instability and bloodshed in the province.
Mfeka’s remarks were becoming “very serious”, as they were not limited to the exclusion of the Indian community from the mainstream economy or BEE requirements but were inciting racial hatred as well.
Mfeka is a member of the Mazibuye African Forum, an anti-Indian organisation.
The message Mfeka sent to Pillay read: “We as Africans have remained silent for far too long whilst Indians continue to exploit, abuse and monopolise everything in the land of our forefathers. Just like our forefathers in 1949 and 85, we now also have to rather die than to be the symbol of poverty in our own land, a curtain of blood must veil the whole of KZN so that the blood of our ancestors can attain justice or we die fighting for it. This Indian hegemony MUST end”.
Said Mchunu: “It [Mfeka’s text message] also refers to 1949 and 1985 when there indeed were attacks on people of Indian origin in KwaZulu-Natal and postulates that this should happen again.”
But an unrepentant Mfeka said that, while he had decided not to contest the court interdict, he would continue with his anti-Indian crusade. “After meeting my legal counsel we have decided not to contest the interdict. I will continue with what I do. I want them to arrest me and be made a sacrificial lamb so that we can determine if this battle being waged is about me or the Nguni nation as a whole.”
Last month, Mfeka tweeted “The time has come, a good Indian is a DEAD Indian” — seemingly mimicking a hateful invective originally attributed to the 19th century American general Philip Henry Sheridan, who had denied making such a statement.
On his blog, Mfeka recently wrote: “Now there is an Indian Imperialist project that is seeping across the country, a project so gradual and thorough that they have replaced Africans as the natives in policies of BEE, Affirmative Action and Employment Equity.
‘‘Indians have entrenched themselves with the support of this ‘non-racial ANC’ in the hierarchy of the Defense Force, Navy, Intelligence Service and the Police Force. They control the South African Revenue Service and even hold imperative Ministries in government.”
Mfeka and Mazibuye are now the subject of an investigation by the South African Human Rights Commission and the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation for propagating hate speech against Indians.