Johannesburg - It started with a drunk Afrikaans-speaking man singing the song De La Rey. And it ended with his Indian counterpart being head-butted in the face and almost falling out of a moving bus on Reconciliation Day.
Dixon Hall was “looking for a fight”, said Muqhtar Dosani, a Heidelberg businessman who said the words of the song had reverberated from the back of the bus.
After shouting racial slurs at Dosani and about 15 of his staff members and relatives, Hall allegedly soaked his finger with the alcohol he was drinking and put it in one of their ears.
“I was humiliated and my religion was insulted,” recalled Dosani. “This left a dent on my image because it happened in front of my employees and family who look up to me as a leader.”
Hall is now facing assault charges.
“He knew we are Muslim and that alcohol is forbidden in our religion. My brother said we mustn’t let this provoke us,” said Nadir Dosani, Muqhtar’s brother.
“(Hall) then put more alcohol on his hand and rubbed it on another of our employee’s head. We still didn’t fight him,” said Nadir.
Dosani had enough when Hall allegedly poured his alcohol into their cooler box that contained soft drinks.
Dixon Hall allegedly hurled racist slurs. Picture: Supplied
Hall is also said to have taken these drinks and started distributing them to his family and friends.
“This is when my brother approached him and took the drinks. He put them back in the cooler and as he stood up, (Hall) head- butted him and said ‘what the f*** are you going to do about it’?’
“My brother almost fell out the moving bus because the door was open,” Nadir explained.
But the brothers did not want to get into a fight with Hall. Instead they opened a case of assault against him with the Magaliesburg police.
Bouwe Wiesma, a lawyer from Heidelberg, who had organised the Reconciliation Day outing by train and bus to Magaliesburg, said he was appalled.
Councillor Lerato Maloka, executive mayor of the Lesedi Local Municipality, and her team were also at the outing.
“Heidelberg is turning 150 years old this year, and we wanted to use the trip as a building block for the heritage of our town on which we can build,” said Wiesma.
“The trip was in celebration of peace, but unfortunately this incident shows that some people are still racist. They haven’t made a step in the right direction.”
What most worried Dosani “above all the insults and the assault” was that when they got off the bus and asked Hall for his contact details, “he confidently shared the information as if he knows that nothing will be done to him about his actions”.
In a video which the Saturday Star has seen, Hall, while opening another beer, boldly gives Dosani his contact details and home address.
As Dosani tells him to expect an assault charge, Hall simply nods his head.
Captain Appel Ernst, spokesman for the Magaliesburg police, said Hall had given his statement last week at the police station.
“For common assault, we don’t normally arrest because it is not a very serious incident,” she explained.
Hall was issued with a warning and will appear in court on January 17.