BLF leader Andile Mngxitama and spokesperson Lindsay Maasdorp at the oral presentations on the possible amendment of section 25 of the constitution to allow for land expropriation without compensation. Photo: Twitter
Black First, Land First spokesperson Lindsay Maasdorp has told the author of this article and others about the controversial party that my “existence is a crime.”
He also repeated his party’s slogan, “land or death.”
Last week, Maasdorp took to Twitter to voice his disapproval of an article in which The Citizen had looked at his tweets alleging that “white media” companies had benefited more from the state than the now-defunct Gupta-owned newspaper The New Age.
Maasdorp said The Citizen “must really learn to read” in a public tweet and also sent us a private message expanding on his views. We published a follow-up article noting his concerns with our initial coverage.
Then later on the same day, Maasdorp again reacted to a separate article written by another Citizen journalist (this one being black himself) about the BLF’s assertion that the EFF “hate blacks” after they did not vote in favour of approving former president Jacob Zuma’s state pension.
READ MORE: Mngxitama says EFF ‘hates blacks’ by voting against Zuma’s pension
Maasdorp lashed out at The Citizen for using a supposedly “ugly picture” of BLF leader Andile Mngxitama.
His problems with the picture may stem from the fact that Mngxitama was pictured wearing the EFF’s colours and talking to another (now similarly expelled) member of the EFF.
While once a prominent member of the party, Mngxitama has long been ejected from it, and the EFF and BLF often come across as bitter enemies.
Maasdorp managed get one of BLF’s pet issues, their attempt to have former apartheid president FW De Klerk arrested, into his tweet despite it seemingly having absolutely no relevance to what was being discussed.
I tweeted a flippant response to his calling our picture “ugly”, saying “any picture of Andile Mngxitama is going to be ugly”. Maasdorp did not appreciate the response, calling me an example of many “mediocre whites in a white supremacist society”.
Things then got more personal, with Maasdorp calling my journalistic skills into question as well as my comedic skills, after he discovered that I am not only a journalist but also musical comedian Deep Fried Man.
This led to a series of tweets culminating in Maasdorp’s comment on the criminality of my very existence, which suggests Trevor Noah may not be the only South African comedian who was “born a crime”.
Maasdorp’s assertion that, as a white person, “my existence is a crime,” provides some insight into the party’s apparent belief that, due to the theft of land by white people during colonisation and apartheid, all white South Africans are therefore criminals, regardless of when they were born and what their political views, history or affiliations may be.
At the recent land hearings held in parliament, Mngxitama called for section 25 of the Constitution to be scrapped entirely to ensure that all land owned by white people is returned to their black counterparts.
READ MORE: Scrap section 25, declare all white-owned land stolen – Mngxitama
The BLF leader said this section should be replaced with a declaration that all land owned by white people in South Africa was stolen property.
Mngxitama has repeatedly made the assertion that absolutely all land occupied by white South Africans should be expropriated.
This makes the party the most extreme in South Africa when it comes to the land issue and in its attitude to white people in general.
READ MORE: Mngxitama hits out at SAHRC’s attempts to ‘ban’ the BLF
They have been accused of hate speech by the South African Human Rights Commision, who have recommended that the party be prevented from contesting the 2019 elections on the grounds that they have made statements violating the Electoral Act.
Maasdorp has come under fire in the past for his posting on both Facebook and Twitter that “I have aspirations to kill white people, and this must be achieved!”
If he does ever go through with that plan, he should probably learn from the mistakes of thousands of unsuccessful movie villains who failed due to revealing their plans.
“If you want to get away with murder, step one is not to post about it on Facebook and Twitter,” is what my “mediocre” friend Deep Fried Man would have said if approached for comment.
He would also have added that he does not think the BLF should be prevented from voting in the 2019 elections, as this would “provoke the six people who intend to vote for them”.
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