By Andisiwe Makinana and Murray Williams
The controversial video shot at the University of the Free State is making headlines on television news networks, newspapers and blogging sites around the world.
Prominent news stations like Sky News, CNN and BBC all carried the story, with some networks using it as their lead story for news bulletins.
Newspapers as diverse as the Toronto Star, The Australian, titles in New Delhi and Waikato in New Zealand, as well as news websites, have all carried the story.
Monsters and Critics, a news and review website, in an article headlined "Racist video gives the lie to Rainbow Nation myth", wrote: "The jubilant South Africans who stood in long lines to cast their vote in the country's first democratic elections at the end of apartheid 14 years ago could never have imagined scenes like these."
Continues Below ↓
All international reports have focused on the cleaners being "forced" to do various humiliating activities. The women have since said they were not forced to do the tasks, but were not aware of what they were taking part in.
A blogger in a French newspaper, The Observer, wrote: "I now have a better idea why racism lives on, loud and proud, in South Africa. If a university educated young man (the so-called 'future of the country') considers these incidents as merely a manifestation of a 'sick sense of humour', and the ensuing protests as 'white black bulls**t', then: good luck, South Africa."
- This article was originally published on page 3 of Cape Argus on February 29, 2008
|