A thread on Willem Breytenbach, the alleged sex predator, former mentor and boss. I too met him as a high school kid, but no, he didn’t try his luck with me. 
We have always known that he liked white, Afrikaans boys much more - the not-so-secret he also actively pushed later in his corporate life. As the editor of my school newspaper (“Excelsior”) in 1996 and 1997, I too was a kiddie star of Die Burger’s now notorious school project.
The same project that Deon Wiggett describes as a conveyor belt of potential targets. As a kid I too spent many hours alone with Willem in empty newspaper offices. In his car. In coffee shops where we discussed news, dreams and possibilities.
I’ve actively written for Die Burger since I was 14, like many of the former child stars who are now media professionals in their own right. That’s how I know @AdriaanBasson, who was with the newspaper at Brackenfell High. We used to later take the train together to the Media24.
That’s also how I first heard about Deon, who was with the school newspaper at Paul Roos. Deon says it was in this time that Willem raped him and I believe him. Willem always had the most disgusting conversations about sex. Grooming is what it’s called today, I guess.
Willem didn’t try anything with me, but he was a horrible boss. Fast-forward a few years until I was a young editor, managing a department of journos at Die Burger. As managers - of which I was the youngest - we reported into Willem and he really pushed us hard.
He lost his shit if we weren’t at the office at 6am. It was his thing to especially torture grown, mostly heterosexual men until they cried in management meetings. Geez, we consumed a lot of brandewyn at management break-aways during Willem’s time.
At at least one of these gatherings in Clanwilliam he tried to get me drunk, but he didn’t know that midway through the experience I had made a deal with the barman to pour me clean Coke instead of brannas.
Hey, in 2005 during the year that I was Media24’s foreign correspondent in London, a friend and colleague died in a car crash after drinking at one of Willem’s strategy sessions. Media24 must have a really short memory because he was a sick bullfrog. Everyone knew it.
Once, in a meeting when Willem was losing his shit, spit foaming from his mouth, a colleague burst out in tears, reminding him that some of us came from broken homes. We joked about it then, but today it saddens me.
I was part of the management team who co-developed initiatives such as Die Burger Plus-ster where we would roam the beaches during December with Willem, looking for young talent. The first winner was Willem Botha who today is a famous Afrikaans singer. At the time he was a kid.
This is a #MeToo moment for Afrikaans people and I wish to express my utmost respect to the brave men now speaking out. Let us not forget to also dissect how corporate culture created the ideal breeding ground for people like Willem.
All the bosses knew he was a monster but he was rewarded and promoted because of the results we helped him achieve. I don’t wish to make any further comment on this matter. It just doesn’t feel right when so many of my brothers are actually dealing with the pain inflicted by him.
The only purpose of this recollection is to let Deon and others know that I salute them. I also want tofocus some of the attention on the role corporate culture played in all of this. We have a moral responsibility to deal with that too.
