Joburger’s Awesome Campaign To Unite South Africans Will Be Published
All the brilliant questions and insightful, hilarious answers that South Africans of all races have been exchanging on Joburger’s Facebook page are to be turned into a book! Joburger – aka South African expat Louwrence van Niekerk – announced the exciting news yesterday. “Things are getting real guys!! – You have all been having such meaningful, […]
All the brilliant questions and insightful, hilarious answers that South Africans of all races have been exchanging on Joburger’s Facebook page are to be turned into a book!
Joburger – aka South African expat Louwrence van Niekerk – announced the exciting news yesterday.
“Things are getting real guys!! – You have all been having such meaningful, funny and ‘real’ conversations that we want to make sure the legacy of South Africans uniting, lives on forever.
“COMING SOON – a book incorporating a selection of your questions, comments and pics called #SAunite – WATCH THIS SPACE!”
Louwrence has been in the news since he kicked off his #f***racism and #sillyquestions campaign (see 10 questions black people want to ask white people in South Africa).
He says: “I’d like to thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I’m a 23 year old South African living in London. Ive been here 3 months and I saw so many depressing, racist stuff happening back home. So I decided I’m gonna try bring the country together. You guys made fucking headlines! So proud of you all.”
Some of the main Joburger questions and answers have been:
All South Africans, what can we do to unite everyone?
Sharon Gotte: “When you speak about another person don’t bring race into it e.g.
That stupid WHITE man swore at me in traffic Or A BLACK woman cut in front of me
Take race out – generally people don’t behave badly (or well) because of the colour of their skin but because of their personality and who they are. Referring to their race just causes more agro!”
All races, what is it about coloured people that you love?
Kenna Lekoko Salbert Mampone: “Coloured people are the sauce in South Africa, they are the Aromat baba…”
All races, what is it about Indian people that you love?
Elzette Kotze-Naidoo: “I happen to love one specific Indian sooooo much … I married him! He still makes me laugh with a ‘Hey Lani, what kind?’ … or if I’m being too stubborn during one of our ‘bargaining sessions’ … he’ll head bob a ‘Take it … and go!’ in my direction”
All races – what is it about black people that you love?
Jennene Moonsamy: I love how they are a community, they always greet each other and say hello, even if they don’t know each other…it’s wonderful (to which Chantelle Khumo Mphahlele replied: “And trust me if you don’t greet someone who lives maybe 5 blocks away from you, your parents are gonna hear about it, now you will have to explain why didn’t you greet em”)
All races, what is it about white people that you love?
Mthoko Prince Nkosi: That smile they give you when making eye contact (to which Nicole Smit Bosch replied: “I took note of that from the previous post so when I was in Checkers today I didn’t just smile at the black man standing next to me; I struck up a conversation and we both ended up laughing and chatting. It was a great moment.”)
In another post, Mlulameli Ngxangxeni added another reason to love white people: “This is what I love about whiteys. They can bring a nation together at the age of 23. Big ups my guy.”
Not everyone’s that thrilled with Joburger. A small YouTuber, Jag, has set up an #IStandWithJag campaign claiming “the Joburger page stole his “Facebook Exchanges” ideas and turned them into a South African viral story. Joburger is a copycat and a shameless one”.
https://youtu.be/mJUfIdmF7Tw
Joburger’s response is: “So, this guy thinks he was original with this. But, one of my followers messaged me that this idea already came to life in 2015. Looks like we all had the same idea. So, I understand why he is angry because his idea didn’t take off and mine did. My idea came to me on my own, looks like we weren’t the only ones having these ideas. Please see link.”
Louwrence’s public life on social media began about seven months ago when he posted this vlog:
https://www.facebook.com/LifeOfLouwrence/videos/153314408528750/
Joburger says: “I am gonna change the world. Just watch me.”
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Back in 2014, Zola Ndlovu created an incredible response on SAPeople with her article: