Photo: Hofmeyr attending the funeral of White Supremacist, Eugene Terreblanche, in 2010. Hofmeyr was the keynote speaker, calling Terreblanche a “cultural icon”.

An appeal to the prestigious Nederburg Wine Estate by Johan de Villiers, founder of African-European Indaba, to reconsider the consequences of a proposed concert by the extreme rightwing singer, Steve Hofmeyr, lead to it’s cancellation. He was due to perform there on 11 February 2017.

African-European Indaba was tipped off of the planned performance by Chris Grobler, well known in the music industry . There is a growing feeling of frustration from some roleplayers within the Afrikaans entertainment community with Hofmeyr using his concerts as a podium to spread his anti-South African and racially provocative rhetoric. He was banned from performing at several Afrikaans arts festivals in South Africa, as well as being banned at venues in The Netherlands during the last two years. A proposed venue at Toronto University was also moved to a semi-industrial location venue, three concerts in Zambia were cancelled and the Cape Town Press Club cancelled his appearance. He lost several major sponsors after a tweet blaming apartheid on black people.

Johan de Villiers contacted Distell, the owners of the Nederburg Wine Estate, to get clarity on the concert. Hofmeyr is an individual who openly insults the majority of South Africans, who among other things says he does not want to be ruled by black people, who opposes transformation legislation in agriculture, who supports charities in his name who openly states they are for “whites” only, who repeatedly shared a podium with a known white supremacist and who insults the majority of the population by singing the apartheid anthem, Die Stem, at all his performances.

Hofmeyr recently said his respect for other cultures and history stopped when he saw a few protesters setting Paul Kruger’s statue alight. He stated he now has only disgust for their culture and history: “We will only tolerate so much, then every black monument in South Africa will be destroyed”. (“…dan k*k elke swart monument…” )

De Villiers met with the CEO of the event organisers, Scott Entertainment, Henri Scott, on Friday afternoon to discuss the event. Scott confirmed by email that the event has been cancelled. Scott said the Nederburg Wine Estate had a “German” events manager and she was not aware who Hofmeyr was.

On Friday African-European Indaba sent out volunteers to retail outlets in The Netherlands to start gathering information and take photographs of Nederburg products on the shelves. They intended to launch a campaign to inform the Dutch consumer that the association between Nederburg and Hofmeyr does not mean all Afrikaans speaking expats share his sentiments or approve of Nederburg giving him a stage to sing the apartheid anthem or spread his racially provocative propaganda and lies.



Photo: Hofmeyr recently praised the convicted Clive Derby-Lewis at the time of his death and previously called for a street to be named after him. Derby-Lewis was sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the assassination of Chris Hani.

De Villiers said: “I am very glad that an iconic heritage symbol such as Nederburg will not be associated with a known rightwing individual such as Hofmeyr. Hofmeyr has the freedom to voice his opinion, as long as he stays within the law, but we also have the right to oppose being associated with him. Nederburg is associated with South Africans in Europe. We do not want that to mean we are also associated with rightwing extremism.”