They say love makes you do crazy things, and Steve Hofmeyr’s love of the old South African flag and the fascist nation it represented knows no bounds.

Back in February, he low-key expressed that love with a tweet about finding a dry spot to wait out the rain. The dry spot happened to have old SA flags tacked to the roof, which were, in Steve’s opinion “mooi, ne“.

Nee, Steve. 

His reaction to artist and activist Johan Pienaar’s use of the old flag in an art installation at Woordfees last year was next level.

The flag, which was laid out on the pavement so that people could walk over it, was embellished with the names of those Pienaar believed were either the “enablers” or “architects of apartheid” – including Hendrik Verwoerd, AfriForum’s Kallie Kriel and Hofmeyr himself.

Steve responded to the flag by offering a reward of R1 500 to anyone willing to remove it from the pavement.

As a result, an unnamed man took it upon himself to answer the call. He removed the flag, handed Pienaar a piece of paper saying that it had now been “expropriated without compensation”, and then ran away.

Here’s The Citizen:

Pienaar laid charges of harrasment and conspiracy to commit theft against Hofmeyr, resulting in an interim protection order in March, 2018 which has now been made permanent by way of a final protection order, after the magistrate found Hofmeyr had violated the the Protection of Harassment Act.

In a twist, this is the same one that Hofmeyr himself attempted to use against comedian and ventriloquist Conrad Koch and his creation, puppet Chester Missing. In that case, however, the move by Hofmeyr and Dan Roodt – who represented him despite not being a lawyer – resulted in failure when an interim protection order granted to Hofmeyr against the puppet (and presumably its creator) was overturned.

This was also a truly ridiculous court case, as Dan Roodt is by no stretch of the imagination a lawyer. He also appeared to be taking on the puppet, not its creator.

Back to Pienaar’s case.

In a statement, Pienaar drew a link between what happened to his installation and other art works that have faced vandalisation – Brett Murray’s The Spear, Dean Hutton’s F**k White People and Ayanda Mabulu’s Nazi Madiba.

Art, Pienaar says, sometimes causes discomfort. “This discomfort should be addressed not by physical attacks on the art, which is where fascism starts, but with proper engagements with these installations,” he adds.

“The judgment which I have now had time to study is a complete vindication of the points we raised in our original application before the court and amounts to a condemnation of Mr Hofmeyr’s actions in this regard as harassment which caused harm to myself,” Pienaar writes.

Steve has been forced to withdraw the bounty he put on the flag in a tweet and discontinue his harassment of Pienaar.

Tracy Nixon-Lomax, Pienaar’s lawyer, says that “even after the interim order was granted Hofmeyr didn’t comply”, and continued to harass Pienaar online.

“This is the court basically saying your conduct is unacceptable and you must stop,” she added.

In his statement, Pienaar also calls out organisations such as Joburg Art Fair and WordPress for their reactions to controversial artworks, which he describes as “similar though more restrained”. He says this is even worse than the reaction to these artworks by “thugs”.

Woordfees apparently tried to remove the artwork themselves, even calling the police, before backing down when they realised that the flag was on public land.

Steve’s lawyers are trying to appeal the decision.

It’s unlikely he’ll meet with any success.

[source:citizen]