A Clicks store is seen 7 September 2020 after it was vandalised on the same day supporters of the EFF demonstrated at Clicks stores around the country after the franchise aired an advert deemed demeaning to black hair. Picture: Michel Bega
The EFF walked away from its latest publicity stunt war victorious, after extracting an apology from Clicks, Unilever and the TRESemme hair brand and, in the process, set a worrying precedent. That precedent is that protest pressure, backed by intimidation, works.
And once you have got national racial outrage on your side, even big business will be afraid to take legal action against you for the damage done to it. The tactic will, no doubt, be used again. Yet, the EFF would not be able to claim such success were there not a very real, underlying sense of grievance among African people that they are subject to institutionalised racism daily – and that when they try to express their feelings, get told they should focus on “real issues”, or stop “blaming apartheid”.
As South Africans, all of us need to have frank conversations about the hurt in our society. Walk a mile in the shoes of the other person, listen with open ears and open mind. This is not about virtue signalling or caving in before thugs.
This is about accepting we are in trouble and that, if we don’t work to bridge the racial divide, we allow extremists like the EFF to write our history.
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