The backlash against the DA’s controversial “racists v heroes” election posters gained momentum on Wednesday with families of the victims of the Phoenix killings, academics and activists joining the fray to slam the party.
While the party has defended its election posters in Phoenix, Durban referring to vigilante groups that are alleged to be behind the killing of 36 people during the July riots, the posters have been described as racially polarising and insensitive.
Ntwenhle Mhlongo of Amaoti township, near Phoenix, whose son Sanele, 19, was shot in July while driving with friends, said the posters, with the message “The ANC called you racists and The DA calls you heroes”, were hurtful.
“I’m still traumatised by what I went through but now I have huge anger from the insult that the DA has poked on victims of Phoenix violence. They are calling the people who killed my son heroes when in fact they are racist and killers. These posters have [made] me realise how insensitive the DA is to our plight and I even question how blacks in the DA feel when they see those posters. Did they have any input? As a mother who lost a son, I’m horrified and angry. They have taken it too far,” said Mhlongo on Wednesday.
It took Mhlongo four days to finally find the bloodied body of her son who was shot while driving with friends looking for petrol near the blockaded Phoenix. It is believed that they were stopped by the alleged vigilante group who pumped their car full of bullets. Sanele was hit three times in the chest and stomach.
His mother had to ask police to escort her to the government mortuary in Phoenix as it was not safe for blacks to walk around.
Of the 36 murdered people in Phoenix, 30 of them were shot, two burnt to death, one run over by a car, one stabbed and two died as the result of other injuries. The killings stoked racial tensions between the black and Indian communities in the area.
Crispin Hemson, director at the International Centre of Non-violence at the Durban University of Technology, said the DA had exploited the situation.
“The posters provoke violence... A recent demonstration in Phoenix called for the people accused of the July murders in the area to be released on bail, and referred to them as ‘heroes’. The DA has chosen to use this term despite their claim that they are totally opposed to the vigilante violence. As an academic focused on violence and non-violence, this language is not innocent. It is playing on highly defensive and reactive feelings around race. For the people who were assaulted, for the people who lost family members in the racial violence against black people, this is extremely hurtful and provocative. Imagine if a group called the killers of white farmers heroes, and then a political party incorporated that into its messages in local townships,” said Hemson.
Sharma Maharaj, leader of Ubuntu Forum, which has been undertaking doing social cohesion programmes in the areas since July, said three months of hard work had gone to waste.
“We’ve organised soccer matches and food programmes in Inanda in an effort to broker peace in this area. Now the DA has messed us up and threw all the hard work into the drain and caused further divisions. It’s hurtful. They were not in the front line when we were trying to bring peace, and their posters have ruined everything. They must remove them and apologise to the public,” said Maharaj.
On Wednesday, DA leader John Steenhuisen defended their posters and accused the ANC and EFF of painting all Indians in Phoenix as racists at the height of the violence. “The heroic people of Phoenix stood up and protected their businesses and homes in the face of a government that completely lost control of the situation,” said Steenhuisen.
Thabang Ngwira, Electoral Commission of SA spokesperson in KwaZulu-Natal, said they had not received any official complaints from the public about the posters.
