No excuses — Mantashe must apologise for crude, politically sexist remarks on sexual exploitation

The ANC’s former deputy secretary-general Thenjiwe Mtintso says the party’s chairperson, Gwede Mantashe, must apologise for his crude and ignorant words.

Ambassador Thenjiwe Mtintso is the former ANC deputy secretary-general.

We write this letter in response to remarks made by ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe during an interview with a Newzroom Afrika journalist while campaigning ahead of the 4 November local government elections. We have waited for Comrade Mantashe to apologise.

The journalist had asked him about allegations that municipal councillors in a mining town were demanding sexual favours from women in exchange for jobs and assistance. Instead of condemning these allegations, Comrade Mantashe used crude language to dismiss the matter as a private issue between individuals, saying it had nothing to do with the ANC.

Comrade Mantashe’s response was crude, politically thoughtless and sexist.

A national chairperson is supposed to be a repository of the ANC’s policies and values. He is supposed to lead by example. Comrade Mantashe has not only failed to do this, but has instead become an embarrassment to the movement.

Last year, a video went viral in which he told men not to assault women when they had disagreements with them, but rather to use their “God-given sticks”. The message was not lost on women who face gender-based violence from men wielding their “men’s sticks”.

He never apologised, and the ANC does not seem to have reprimanded him.

We were taught in our homes not to use crude language. Calling intimate body parts by their names in ordinary conversation was taboo. The worst insult was to use these body parts to insult another person.

Mzwanele Mayekiso seems not to have been brought up in this culture of avoiding crude language. He therefore misses the point when he takes us on an academic journey in his defence of Comrade Mantashe in an article in City Press titled Language, Culture and Mental Colonialism.

He tells us that in pure isiXhosa, calling body parts by their direct, literal names is “neither crude nor inherently profane”, but is anatomically, historically, grammatically descriptive and cultural.

However, he does not tell us the circumstances under which such language would be used or considered acceptable. He does not tell us whether this language was used in our African homes, or explain the context in which it would have been used.

He does not do so because he knows that, in our African culture, crude language is not used in ordinary daily conversations.

In praise of Comrade Mantashe, Mayekiso argues that there would have been no outcry had he expressed the same sentiments in abstract English.