Mngxitama taking hate speech to another level

NICOLA MILTZ

Welcome to the mouth of Andile Mngxitama, president of the Black First Land First (BLF) political organisation and a Steve Biko-wannabe who strives to be the local hero of the Black Consciousness Movement and Africa’s downtrodden.

He is reported to have an MA in sociology from Wits and is a racist. He claims whites stole all the land in South Africa from the blacks and it’s time they give it back.

“You Jews have no capacity to self-reflect on your shocking, consistent, ongoing oppression and racism against black people,” he ranted and raged at the SA Jewish Report.

“You can’t deny the Holocaust but you deny the black holocaust,” he said, making little sense in his outrageous ramblings.

One week ago, Mngxitama – described by political commentators this week as a “depraved fascist” – tweeted his true colours.

At 05:20 on Thursday, August 24 – just as the Twitter world was waking up – he stuck a knife deep into the belly of the Jewish community with a deplorable tweet: “For those claiming the legacy of the holocaust is ONLY negative think about the lampshades and Jewish soap.”

It was out of the blue and caught the community off guard.

This was done on the same day that the BLF faced off with the Premier of the Western Cape Helen Zille, in the Equality Court, following charges Mngxitama laid against her for her controversial tweets on colonialism.

In a series of tweets she made in March this year she said: “For those claiming the legacy of colonialism was ONLY negative, think of our independent judiciary, transport infrastructure, piped water etc.”

Later on the same day, he tweeted: “I concure (sic) with @Helenzille that the aroma of the burning flesh from the furnace of the Holocaust may wet (sic) the appetite of the SA cannibals.”

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) was quick to issue a statement in response to the hateful tweets. Complaints flooded the South African Human Rights Commission. Social media was set alight and Mngxitama gloated in self-satisfaction, pleased that he’d successfully “proved his point that black lives don’t matter” to other people and upped the ante in anti-Semitic, anti-white hate speech.

Dozens lambasted him. Even the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) – of which Mngxitama was an ousted member – Julius Malema, that night tweeted: “Let’s meet. I want to give you the experience the Jews went through during the holocaust. Start by gassing you and then burning your body.”

However, there is a strong group who support Mngxitama. One follower tweeted: “Haha Mngxi is a champion, he brings discomfort to the enemy. I see us getting our land back soon.”

An unapologetic and defiant Mngxitama told the SA Jewish Report that Jews had not apologised for their role in the “historical oppression of blacks and that blacks continue to live through the holocaust.

“You Jews have no capacity to understand irony, to understand that I was paraphrasing Zille to make a point. You claim to be the most civilised but you are so self-absorbed.

“Jews helped enslave the black people, you took over our land. Who put Nelson Mandela in jail?

“I’m not your garden boy. Go ahead and write your original interesting Zionist bullsh**t. You think I’m here to entertain you? I’m not Mmusi Maimane.”

Mngxitama claims to be a champion of the poor and oppressed black person in a country that he says is “capitalist, racist, white supremacist and essentially anti-black”.

He was expelled from the EFF in 2015 when he grew disgruntled with the way in which the party discarded his ideas on land reform – namely expropriation without compensation.

Mngxitama, was found guilty of speaking to the media after his suspension, implicating party leaders in alleged theft of party funds and leaking party information to the media.

At one point, he was reported to have earned about R80 000 a month as an EFF Member in Parliament. Today he is self-proclaimed “broke” staring financial ruin in the face and having had his houses repossessed by Nedbank.

The BLF has come out in strong support of the ANC’s President Jacob Zuma, despite his numerous corruption charges and has shown support for the controversial Gupta family, who have been accused of state capture through their various dealings with the Zuma family.

In recent months, he has grown increasingly vitriolic in his anti-white rhetoric and often taunts his former colleague, Julius Malema, by accusing him of being a sell-out and a Democratic Alliance (DA) “house nigger” and “noisy poodle”.

However, Mngxitama has lost credibility and has been exposed as a fraud for allegedly aligning himself with the controversial Gupta family in a desperate bid to keep his flailing political organisation afloat.

Leaked Gupta e-mails have shown how Mngxitama – an outspoken Gupta supporter – had asked the family for money in 2016. He has dismissed these claims saying they were “absolute nonsense” and that they were “based on a strategy to attack whoever was opposed to white monopoly capital”.

Mngxitama has been mocked on social media for his “pot belly” indicating that he has money for food, while his supporters remain poor. He was recently bust for being seen driving away from a media gathering in Cape Town in former Eskom chief Brian Molefe’s son’s bright red Audi. He has also been teased for drinking lattes and cappuccinos – not exactly a poor black man’s drink.

Mngxitama launched a series of attacks on journalists who had been reporting on the Gupta leaks and state capture. The BLF and Mngxitama held a protest on June 29, at the home of Tiso Blackstar editor-at-large Peter Bruce in Parkview, harassing him and Business Day editor Tim Cohen and Karima Brown‚ who visited Bruce’s house that day.

That resulted in an urgent interdict to stop the harassment and intimidation. On July 7 Judge AJ van der Westhuizen granted an order to Sanef (the SA National Editors’ Forum) and 11 journalists, interdicting BLF and Mngxitama from harassing, threatening, intimidating, or coming to the homes of any of these journalists, or from threatening them on social media.

Then, Mngxitama and BLF members disrupted a debate hosted by amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism in Braamfontein on July 27. Because of this, on August 8, Judge Sharise Weiner found them to be in contempt of Van der Westhuizen’s order.

She sentenced Mngxitama to three months in jail, suspended indefinitely and he was warned that if he continued to threaten and intimidate journalists, he would be imprisoned.

Judge Weiner did not impose the R100 000 fine which the applicants, Stephen Patrick, Sam Sole, Ferial Haffajee and Sanef had asked the court to impose.

Sanef chairwoman, Mahlatse Gallens, said the purpose of the targeted harassment of these journalists “is to keep allegations of corruption and state capture out of the public domain.”

SAJBD President Mary Kluk this week said: “The SAJBD unequivocally condemns the offensive tweets. They have caused immense hurt and pain to members of our community and cannot be ignored.”

She said the Board will be instituting proceedings against Mngxitama in the Equality Court.

We believe that there is no justification whatsoever for these hateful tweets… speech that impugns the dignity of a community and causes such enormous hurt should be responded to, and to suggest otherwise, compounds the offence,” Kluk said.

The day before Mngxitama fired his anti-Semitic tweets, Sowetan journalist Salom Shilongo wrote an opinion piece about “a new bunch of confused clowns and lost lunatics calling themselves intellectuals”.

With reference to Mngxitama he said: “They see themselves as some Messiah for Africa… They are hungry for fame and power… and they are desperate to be recognised as great thinkers, philosophers… Sometimes they act as attack dogs for someone… in return they get rewarded with a handful of bones.”

Shilongo wrote that a “hungry lunatic is more dangerous than a mad dog”.

Steve Biko would be turning in his grave and this time Mngxitama has gone too far.