Yoh, but it has been a while since I even thought of the first ever winner of the South African version of Idols, but it’s worth it, I promise.

Last week, Heinz Winckler decided to wade into the farm murder debate by suggesting to his fans via a video posted to Facebook that it was “unreasonable of the protesters to try to get the attention of the international community,” reports HuffPost:

“They have their own problems, they are under terror attacks, they have got Isis, they have got immigrants and they have all sorts of issues they are dealing with,” Winckler said.

He went on to say wearing black was not going to solve the problem of farm murders, adding he believed there were deeper-rooted issues that needed to be addressed.

“Something has to change, that is true, but… is it going to help to wear black on a Monday? Respectfully, I don’t think so…” he said.

“We are not going to solve farm murders as a specific problem if we don’t look at… the real cause… of the problem; it is not a race thing, but we are making it a race thing… that is not the way we are going to get a better nation,” he said.

Winckler said there were many reasons for farm murders that are not directly linked to race.

“We sit with an unbelievably unhealthy, dysfunctional social society, where we have… millions of people that grew up in [a] way that did not teach them what the average Afrikaans, white person was taught when they grew up…”

But this is the real winner:

“Some of these guys who are getting so upset about farm murders are probably beating their wives at home, because if you look at the stats there is a big part of men abusing [their] wives…”

He challenged people not to wear black, but to wear white instead, “as a statement of light against the darkness”.

Assuming the demographics of Heinz’s fans, you can imagine how notions like that probably didn’t go down very well.

Commenting on his Facebook video, fans were, indeed, livid:

CDs? Who the heck still buys CDs?

Of course, the threat must have got Heinz thinking about the possibility of never hitting platinum and he recorded another video, this time an apology, saying how he “he did not mean to upset people”:

He said he did not want to come across as not having sympathy for Afrikaans people.

But he still maintains that he wanted South Africans to unite for a common cause, instead of being divided.

“I love you, I love Afrikaans people, I love black people,” he said in the video.

Both videos have since been removed from his Facebook, but forever will his opinions be known.

Oh, Winckler.

[source:huffpost]