A high-court ban on the words "shoot the boer" was met with mixed reaction on Friday. While the African National Congress was shocked at the ruling and vowed to challenge it in the Constitutional Court, the Afrikanerbond and Freedom Front Plus welcomed it.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Friday that the Johannesburg High Court had ruled the use of the words "dubul' ibhunu [shoot the boer]" was unconstitutional and unlawful. Delmas businessman Willem Harmse had applied for an urgent interdict to prevent his colleague Mahomed Vawda from using the words on banners and singing them during a planned march against crime. While Harmse argued that the words perpetuated hate speech and incited hatred, Vawda contended that they referred to the symbolic killing of apartheid.
The ANC, which reportedly intends appealing against the judgement, expressed astonishment at the court's failure to approach it for input on the history and purpose of the struggle song Ayesaba Amagwala [The Cowards are Scared]. The song's lyrics include the words: "aw dubul' ibhunu [shoot the boer] 'a magwala [the cowards are scared] dubula dubula [shoot shoot]". The ANC believed that, had its input been sought, the court would have reached a different conclusion. Earlier this month, ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe cautioned against "systematically erasing history", and said the interpretation of the song had been "vulgarised". "It's an old struggle song. Anybody who relegates it into hate speech today ... I will regard that as a serious attempt to erase our history. If you try to erase the history through courts, that would be unfortunate to the country."
Complaints have recently been laid against ANC Youth League president Julius Malema with the Equality Court and the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) over his repeated singing of the song in public. The Freedom Front Plus viewed the ANC's contention that the words be seen in the struggle context as "totally unacceptable". "Mr Malema was nine-years-old when [former president Nelson] Mandela was freed. He was never really part of the 'struggle'. If he sang the song today, it has to be judged in the context of 2010 and the fact that farmers are being killed weekly," the party said in a statement.
The Afrikanerbond now wants the SAHRC to decide whether the song constitutes incitement to violence and hate speech. Its chief secretary Jan Bosman said it hoped the ruling was "a first step in forcing politicians to think about pronouncements that create the potential for conflict".
Source: Mail & Guardian
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