FIKILE-NTSIKELELO MOYA | Making song and dance of 'Kill the Boer' makes martyrs of bandits

AfriForum cannot have it both ways.

It cannot rely and demand protection of historical memory (as represented by the flag) when it suits it and demand obliteration of the same memory (as represented by Struggle songs).

Let us recap. AfriForum went to the Equality Court to ask that the Struggle song or chant, Kill the Boer, be declared hate speech.

The court rejected this application and ruled that there was no evidence showing that the song with the chant was directed at the farming community and posed a danger to those in that sector. 

AfriForum has since decided to take the matter to a higher court convinced that a different view is possible.

I hope the application fails.

If you have a murderous regime, it doesn't take a political scientist to tell you that you are bound to have a resistance system that unashamedly hates and wants to kill those who have usurped their land and dehumanised them.

Perhaps we need to remind AfriForum that apartheid was a crime against humanity. It would be nice if this organisation took a moment to reflect on what this means and look at the possible responses to such a system.

It is not unheard of that the oppressed wish the worst possible fate for their oppressors. Including their death.

Another thing – and this might come as a surprise to AfriForum – there are dozens of Struggle songs that encourage the killing of the oppressors. 

If AfriForum were to succeed in this particular case, it might turn out to be pyric because the Struggle "discography" has a lot more in its store. 

It is simply impossible to ban every song that celebrated or encouraged the shooting and killing of those responsible for their oppression. It would be like hoping that people of faith would one day stop saying unkind words about the devil.

Contrary to what it and some sections of the media have suggested, Dubul'ibhunu does not belong to Julius Malema or his party. 

The tendency to appropriate Struggle songs to an individual, such as giving former president Jacob Zuma “mshini wam”, betrays a tragic failure to understand the very Struggle that groupings like AfriForum want to police.

This is the historic context. The contemporary context where farmers are killed is not and should not be bound to our historical memory.

This is the same group that believes that freedom of expression means it or anyone who wants to, must be allowed to display the apartheid flag regardless of the feelings it evokes.

Interestingly, AfriForum relies on “context” for wanting the courts to uphold individuals’ rights to fly the apartheid flag which the group itself acknowledges is representative of a system “that invaded everyone’s dignity to different degrees".

One assumes it means treating black people’s dignity as a doormat and whites’ as an entity worthy of respect.

All of this does not and should not downplay the horrendous crime that is farm killings. Anyone who is at ease with murder, regardless of who is a victim, is barbaric.

Anyone happy with crime as long as it is against those they despise, is an accomplice to that crime and should not be welcome in any society.

Even if the criminals say that's their motivation, we must never dress criminals in political dresses. 

Criminals are interested in their own happiness and couldn't be bothered by political niceties. If in doubt, just look at the police crime statistics and see where you are most likely to be murdered in SA.

The vast majority of crime victims are black and working class.

AfriForum is entitled to register its unhappiness on the state’s incapability to detect and arrest criminals. It must not, in that process, give thugs a false sense that they are motivated by anything other than their greed.

By making this political, AfriForum gives an undeserved honour to scoundrels. It makes martyrs of bandits.

This is the time to use the term terrorists unlike in the past where the word was used to downplay a noble effort to overthrow a system founded on the dehumanisation, oppression, disenfranchisement and dispossession of a people purely because of their skin colour.

Malema and the EFF have not made the case for historical memory easier by pretending that they were calling for the kissing of the farmer. It might provide a legal loophole but it is not helpful because it does not deal with the context in which the sentiment arose.

* Moya is Sowetan political editor