In 2010 a judge had ruled that phrase, “shoot the boer” amounts to hate speech and it’s now illegal to chant the song.
It was a refrain that Mokaba had first uttered at a Chris Hani memorial rally in Cape Town in 1993, the then President of ANC Youth League. The song was then sung again at the University of the North in Mankweng outside Polokwane when premier Ngoako Ramatlhadi announced that the coffin of Peter Mokaba had arrived in the university’s stadium.
Today the court says the lyrics of the song – “Shoot to kill, kill the boer, kill the farmer” are to not be taken literally.
The Equality Court in Johannesburg ruled in August last year that the song was not hate speech or incitement, after AfriForum took the matter to court. The court held that the song was a freedom of speech and had to be left in the political arena.
The court also ruled how struggle songs should be allowed to be sung.
This is what Julius Malema had to say as a lay witness, “These are songs are used to make sure that the youth become interested in the struggle and that then is why they will be sounds like that. But to show that there is nothing literal even the shooting of the gun is not a real gun. So if it was meant in a literal sense, we would have taken guns and shot them in the air. That is why we are doing it with our hands”
We are living in a world where songs carry significant weight, songs such as ‘Kill the boer, kill the farmer’ carry historical events that when one remembers one can almost draw back to the exact moment. We have been respected enough as black people of this country by the law of South Africa to make sure that the “K” word is not thrown around not even in the political arena. Let’s extend the same respect to the white people of this country.
Be Your Brother’s Keeper!!!
Resources: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2010-03-29-kill-the-boer-a-brief-history/
