WATCH: Ntsiki Mazwai denies saying Global Festival goers deserved to get robbed
The poet says the media has written lies about her in an attempt to make a her scapegoat for what went wrong.
Ntsiki Mazwai. Image: Instagram
Poet Ntsiki Mazwai has taken to social media to explain the statement she made about those who were robbed after the Global Citizen Festival at the FNB stadium on Sunday.
Mazwai was highly criticised after saying on Twitter: “The concept of this concert was evil, ugly, and excluded most people. You deserved to get robbed for spitting in the faces of the poor. Then you put the show near the poor – aninyi perhaps?”
She landed on the Twitter trends list after South Africans called her “insensitive” and “bitter”.
But now she says the media reported lies about her and misquoted her.
She said in a video: “I did not say that the [Global Citizen] Festival goers deserved to be robbed. What I said was ‘how dare you put a middle class, elitist event in the neighbourhood of the poor and expect nothing to happen’. That is spitting in the faces of the poor, and anybody who spits in the faces of the poor does deserve that. And yes maAfrika, in Africa we don’t spit in the faces of the poor, we don’t gloat.
“South Africa has the highest rate of inequality in the world. I mean we’ve got the highest number of poor people compared to a small number of rich people in the world. I’m not going to let the small number of rich people make fools and buffoons of the big number of the masses.”
Mazwai said the event was not for poor people because if it were, they would have been included and street vendors would have been allowed to sell. She questioned how the festival organisers could help eradicate poverty when they were the ones apparently contributing to it.
She further called on the festival to account for what happened after the event and the media to stop making her a “scapegoat”.
“The festival has now contributed to a situation where people were put in danger, the festival should be made to account. I will not be used as a scapegoat, that’s what the media is doing. I did not say that spectators deserved to be robbed, I said how dare you put this event in the backyard of the poor.”
Watch the video below:
NTSIKI MAZWAI RESPONDS TO GLOBAL CITIZEN ALLEGATIONS "You will NOT use me as a sccapegoat!" pic.twitter.com/xODQv43ID0
— NtsikiMazwaiMedia (@ntsikimazwai) December 4, 2018
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