By Mike Smith
26th of May 2017
I have read the CEO of Spur, Piere van Tonder’s new open letter and response to Dr. Dirk Hermann in both Afrikaans and English versions as well as the comments on Maroela Media.
You can see it here:
Spur CEO's Open Letter To Solidarity: This Boycott Serves A Political Agenda
Spur hoof se ope brief aan Solidariteit
All I can say is that I am flabbergasted at Van Tonder’s idiocy. What did he think? Did he honestly believe that his attack on Dr. Dirk Hermann (because that is what it is) will make people stream back to Spur? Did he think his extended bullying tactics and slaps he dealt out to whites would make them crawl back? He must be a special kind of stupid. We had enough! We are not your punching bag, Mr Van Tonder!
Van Tonder admits that Spur (that means, HE) made mistakes, but refuses to mention those mistakes by name.
Look, do not get me wrong, I also have a problem with Dr Dirk Hermann. People tend to forget that Hermann did his thesis on Affirmative Action and that he wrote a booklet on how to implement Affirmative Action fairly. In other words he approves of Affirmative Action, just not always in how it is implemented. It is like saying rape and murder is OK as long as you do it gently.
I am not sure if Dr. Hermann still stands by his original views, I mean people change, but in my opinion Affirmative Action is wrong, period.
BEE and Affirmative Action says that all blacks were "disadvantaged" and all whites were "advantaged".
Affirmative Action is racist. It is a system based on race and not on historical fact. Under the current interpretation even rich blacks were “disadvantaged” and poor whites were “advantaged”.
Affirmative Action can NEVER be implemented fairly. It should be banned and declared illegal. Our constitution (chapter 2) Bill of Rights (section 9) unfortunately makes it clear that discrimination on the base of race is “fair discrimination” when it is done against whites and unfair when done against blacks.
Nevertheless, what is the solution for Spur?
First of all they need to play open cards. They should stop to underestimate people’s intelligence.
Spur played judge, jury and executioner in this incident and now it is haunting them. They need to (as soon as possible) release the unedited, full version of the video to the public so that people can make their own judgments. Spur needs to call both parties in the incident into their head office at Century City in Cape Town and resolve the issue fairly. They should admit to their mistakes in how they handled the incident.
Spur should publicly and openly state their commitment to non-racial practices of ANY kind. They should abandon any and all forms of bias and discrimination based on race. That includes distancing themselves from BEE and Affirmative Action. They should allow managers, cooks, waiters and waitresses to be employed on merit and not on race. That means also employing white, coloured and Indian waitresses (not just blacks) who can actually speak English and Afrikaans to a reasonable degree and respect their patron’s constitutional rights to be addressed in their mother tongue, as far as reasonably possible.
Lastly, they need to improve the quality of their food and service. Maybe then, people will start coming back.
Until then…The boycott continues and it will be extended to all other franchises and products. That means that from now on we will also boycott Pannarotties, John Dory’s and Captain DoRegos.
Good Luck, Van Tonder.
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