ANC Urges Followers to Defy Ban on Song
By Aislinn Laing
The Telegraph, March 31, 2010
"South Africa's ruling African National Congress has been accused of inciting the murder of white people after it urged the public to ignore a court ruling that an anti-apartheid song featuring the words 'Kill the Boer' was 'illegal hate speech.' The struggle song, entitled Ayesaba Amagwala (The Cowards are Scared), was sung at political rallies during the time of racial segregation but was recently resurrected by Julius Malema, the leader of the ANC's youth league at a student meeting. But with the word Boer meaning farmer in Afrikaans, the murder of white farmers in rural areas on the increase and talk by the government of nationalising productive farms raising fears of a new Zimbabwe, his choice of anthem provoked an outcry. A subsequent court ruling that the
phrase was illegal has done little to dampen the row. With the ANC insisting South Africans should ignore the ban and defend their cultural heritage, there are now accusations that it too is inciting violence. Mr. Malema, tipped by President Jacob Zuma as his heir apparent, has been labelled 'an accessory to the wiping out of farmers in South Africa' by Freedom Front Plus, a party protecting the rights of Afrikaners. ... Helen Zille, the Democratic Alliance leader, said the ANC risked destroying the legacy of reconciliation started by former president Nelson Mandela. 'There can only be one conclusion: that the ANC is justifying incitement to murder people on the basis of their race in the new South Africa,' she said. 'We recall President Mandela and the national executive committee of the ANC rebuking Peter Mokaba when he sang these words in the mid-1990s. The fact that the ANC is seeking to defend this hate speech today shows how far that organisation has deviated from President Mandela's vision.' At least two white farmers or family members are murdered every week in South Africa and last year alone, 120 were killed. [...]"
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As a norm, society choose to ignore and somehow be more reluctant to expose racially motivated crimes committed by Blacks because of the white colonial exploitations of the past. The question is when all this cycle of non-sense will stop ? When will Governments in Africa and other parts of the World will hold blacks, whites and any in between, equally accountable for racial crimes ? The answer, I am afraid, is that will take generations to right all the wrong. Meanwhile, innocent victims will pay the ultimate price of our indifference.
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