The Director of Research at the Auwal Socio-economic Research Institute (ASRI) said organizations and political parties should tread carefully when commenting on people’s deaths.
This comes after several political parties, including the ANC, DA and EFF, offered their condolences to the family and commented on the killing of award-winning rapper Kiernan “AKA” Forbes.
AKA and his friend Tebello ‘Tibz’ Motsoane were shot dead outside the Wish restaurant in Durban on Friday night.
Right to privacy
After the death of AKA, his family said: “In this sad time, we ask for your mercy, for a place and a time for the family to come together to decide the day to come”.
Talk to The WargaAngelo Fick Asri said that the families of the deceased have the right to privacy and political parties should remember this.
“The death of a person is a private matter, unless it involves state actors like in Marikana. [or] in Life Esidimeni, and I suspect political parties can be very careful about what they want to do publicly,” Fick said.
“The organizations that have commented may be interested in signaling to those they think they should support, that they want to see as an organization to see those who want to vote, and it can be done in a certain way, but it can also backfire spectacularly. ”
Also read: Mbaks campaigning at the doorstep of the AKA family shows that they have no shame
Glory in short supply
Fick said South Africa was a country of “low dignity”.
“This is always the case in countries that are unequal and many believe that if you become famous, you have to transcend the problems of unequal society.
“For many people, this death is a symbol of many other deaths that are not reported and do not involve famous people or celebrities and, therefore, some public comments, professions that do not like the system can cause death. like Mr. Forbes.
Non-famous deaths don’t make headlines
“But in reality, this is just a symbol of how other people feel from relatives, friends, people in their environment who also died but did not make the headlines,” added Fick.
Fick said the organization which has yet to comment on AKA’s death may be “drawing two short straws”.
“If they don’t comment, they seem indifferent and if they comment, they seem to jump. So, it is very difficult for organizations in the era of social media anger and emotional information to measure where, when and what to comment,” said Fick.
Also read: AKA’s death ‘robbed us of the opportunity to vindicate our daughter’ – Moses Tembe