Steve Hofmeyr could face more than a Twitter roasting, as Van Damme intends to lay charges
19 June 2019
A contentious tweet by controversial singer Steve Hofmeyr could get him more than a few hundred retweets and likes.
DA Member of Parliament Phumzile van Damme on Wednesday confirmed to News24 that she was "talking to lawyers to formulate a proper affidavit", whereafter she would lay charges against the Afrikaans musician over his tweet.
Hofmeyr would later claim that his tweet - which tagged both Van Damme and Ambassador to Denmark Zindzi Mandela - was about the definition of a public servant and "self-defence".
The tweet elicited a lot of anger from Twitter users.
One @anna454544 tweeted: "Steve, ek is "n wit afrikaanse 'tax paying citizen' en jou arrogansie maak my naar."
"Report this as hate speech," @marangdream commented.
"I almost wasted my anger on useless things," @Dzongakhulu1 weighed in and Van Damme replied: "Nami. iUseless le bhari. iBhari, yibhari, yibhari. ("Me too. This idiot is useless. Idiot, he is an idiot, he is an idiot.")
Van Damme made headlines on Tuesday after she punched a man at the V&A Waterfront after he came into her space and allegedly said, "voetsek you black", before throwing her phone on the ground.
She tweeted a video in which she said that she had been standing in a queue when she got involved in a quarrel with the mother of a family at one of the supermarkets. The woman allegedly told her she would "push [her] aside".
"Then when I went out, she was standing there with her family in a threatening manner. And I went to her and said, 'Why are you looking at me in a threatening manner?' Then she said, 'It's because you're black.'"
After the young man allegedly approached, racially abused and threw down her cellphone, Van Damme punched him.
Waterfront spokesperson Donald Kau has since apologised for the incident and how it was handled.
'It is because we keep quiet that racism thrives'
On Wednesday, Van Damme tweeted: "I could say a lot how I feel about those who tell me I should've 'kept quiet', 'walked away'. It is because we keep quiet that racism thrives. Racists feel emboldened.
"If I had said nothing what message would I be sending to that family who have no doubt subjected others to the same racism? That their conduct is OK because they know we just walk away?
"What future would I be laying for those who will come behind me? A country where racism thrives? No, Ma’am."
Mandela, who is SA's ambassador to Denmark, on Tuesday reappeared on Twitter after three days of silence, following a series of tweets from her account aimed at "apartheid apologists" and "land thieves".
On Friday, Mandela tweeted: "Dear Apartheid Apologists, your time is over. You will not rule again. We do not fear you. Finally #TheLandIsOurs."
"Whilst I wine and dine here... wondering how the world of shivering land thieves is doing #OurLand," was another of her late-night tweets.
Mandela trended on Saturday, as she took on social media users who disagreed with her view on the land debate.
