A comment by a judge in South Africa’s Idols television show stirred a national conversation, and it had nothing to do with music.
South African television network M-Net dropped Gareth Cliff from its judging panel for the reality singing competition after a tweet that some South Africans thought was racist. Cliff, who said his tweet was not racist and was instead a defence of free speech, then won a court case against M-Net and was reinstated on Idols South Africa.
Cliff, who is white, said on Saturday that South Africa, which emerged from white minority rule in 1994, should continue a civil discussion about race.
The judge on the 12th season of South Africa’s version of the international franchise also said: “The show will go on.”
Auditions are currently underway.
The uproar over Cliff began after a South African white woman, Penny Sparrow, said in a Facebook post that black beachgoers celebrating the new year were making a mess and described them as “monkeys.”
Many South Africans were outraged by the remarks and there were calls to prosecute Sparrow and introduce a new law that would criminalise comments deemed to be racist.
Cliff, a radio and television host, was dismissed as an Idols judge after tweeting: “People really don’t understand free speech at all.”
“We do not believe that Gareth is a racist but his response showed a lack of empathy for our history and it is important to differentiate between freedom of speech and hate speech,” M-Net said in a statement.
The network had to backtrack after a judge in Johannesburg ruled that Cliff should be reinstated because M-Net had a contractual relationship with him. The company was also ordered to pay his legal costs.
