Mantashe wants the retired estate agent to face the Equality Court over her Facebook post which compared Durban beachgoers to monkeys.

He is asking the court to rule that the post was racist and propagated hate by dehumanising black people. He hopes the court will fine her R200, 000, to be paid to a charity supporting nonracialism.

He also wants guidance from the court on whether she can be criminally charged.

In his affidavit to the court, Mantashe said that, left unchecked, Sparrow’s action could lead to others making racist utterances and “engaging in hate speech”.

He said there had been “a dramatic increase of incidents of open racism and hate speech” and warned of retaliation resulting in “racial conflict, strife and general chaos on a national scale”.

Mantashe filed the suit on January 19 but had been unable to find Sparrow to serve a summons.

ANC lawyer Peter Williams said Sparrow had closed her Facebook account.

ANC spokesman Zizi Kodwa said the party had “every reason” to believe the court would find in its favour.

The black man’s burden

“We think that the court has got a duty to restore [South Africans’] dignity and at the same time it must send a message that racism has no place in the new South Africa,” said Kodwa.

The Sunday Times attempted to contact Sparrow this week, but was unsuccessful. A phone number used to contact her in January no longer exists and calls to a second number went to voicemail. There was no response to several text messages sent last month and this week.

Sparrow’s daughter, Charmaine Cowrie, said: “I’m unfortunately going to say, very basically, no comment.”

In an interview with the Sunday Times in January, Sparrow said she was unlikely to stay in KwaZulu-Natal because many people outraged by her statements had found out where she lived.

At the time, she said she stayed with friends for one night at a time because she had received death threats.

She said she was considering moving to Port Elizabeth “because I still have some friends there”. Her father is from that city.

“I’ve got to keep a low figure [sic] at the moment. I’ve had to move away from home. It’s not that I’m running away, but when there are mobs coming for you and people get together like that, it becomes hysterical and I’m afraid they will do something to me,” she said.