In August last year, the equality court dismissed AfriForum’s complaint against the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). AfriForum claimed that the singing of Kill the boer, Kill the farmer contained hate speech, hence, contravenes the Equality Act on the constitution. Recently this year, post the EFF’s 10th birthday party celebration in FNB stadium, the issue once again came under the spotlight. This time even the richest man in the world had something to say.
Some saw it a necessity that CIC Julius Malema be reported to the Humans Right Commission and be held accountable for perpetrating “white genocide” in South Africa. AfriForum claims that black people took the lyrics literally and went into farms killing white farm owners, starting a white genocide risking the lives of white people in the country as they claim. Prior to that, it is the very same AfriForum that lost a case of publicly displaying the Apartheid flag. A flag that resembles the National Party’s discrimination against black people in South Africa since 1910. This only tells me one thing; the guilt is pounding in the white coloniser’s heart.
The guilt they feel is with regards to the atrocities committed by whites during their Apartheid reign. The genocide’s they committed in 1976 and 1960 against black people are haunting them. They realize the consciousness of the black people, that we are still under the system of domination and subjugation. The black economic emancipation the EFF claims to fight for is a thorn to their rule which they achieve through economic exploitation of blacks and Africa’s natural resources. Dr Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh makes it clear that Apartheid did not die in 1994, in fact, it was privatised.
The chant by CIC Malema and EFF members confronts and acknowledges that South Africa is economically-racially unequal, and that there is a generational mission in the hands of Black people. The lyrics of the chant merely acknowledges the urgency of land redistribution to close the economic inequality gap and other issues regarding land that defect black people in South Africa. The response by AfriForum and some parts of the country is disappointingly racist in a democratic-constitutional country. Allow me to reflect.
I am from the Zulu tribe. Singing, dancing, and fighting is a form of art to us. Through this art we learn life related lessons. For instance, in fighting we learn how to deal with defeat. We learn that in life we’ll sometimes incur defeats or success. Through singing we celebrate our victory and substantiate our spirits in the case of defeat. Our hymns are filled with messages to our ancestors to bless us with abundance and shelter us from enemies. Notice this: it is who we are as the Zulu’s. It may not be the base to define the Zulu culture, but it is certainly a part the Zulu’s hold in definition of their culture. It forms part of how we define ourselves in relation to the world. It’s how we find and understand ourselves. It’s our Blackness and our definition. Now, you can never expect a white person, the AfriForum, to understand this. To them, it being superstitious and African.
Additionally to that, you can not say to me that a chant that is sang in relation to the struggles of black people in South Africa, a chant that resonates and connects us to the generational mission of breaking the chains of black economic exploitation, is discriminative and contains hate speech. You can also not say to me that black people would give up their lives and listen to one man who allegedly tells them to commit white genocide.
The level of racism in these claims and conclusions by AfriForum is an insult to the 29 years efforts of all South Africans to consolidate their democracy and freedom from racial discrimination. The argument against the Kill the boer, Kill the farmer chant undermines black people in the country. The AfriForum think so low of black people that they would commit ‘white genocide’ because the EFF and its leader wishes so. The inference of their argument is not only racist but also statistically and logically weak. The killings of farm owners is not seen as crime since white lives are in involved. The killings in Alexander township and KwaMashu are just crime since black lives are involved. Catch the space?
Conclusively then, we cannot expect people who see us as a pair of hands which they can summon, and once colonised because we are uncivilised and illiterate, to understand African culture of the chant. The argument against the singing of this chant is a serious racist card pulled by AfriForum. It also confirms the fear and guilt in white people, the AfriForum, as they realize the rise in the level of consciousness in black people. The chant confronts an instilled system of domination and exploitation through economic means in South Africa, racial inequality for that matter.
-MediaHouse150
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