by Ernst Roets
By 20 March 2010, the SAHRC confirmed that it had received 109 complaints about Malema’s singing of ‘Dubula iBhunu’. The Commission said, however, that it was not prepared to investigate the matter, given the fact that a complaint had been lodged against Malema at the Equality Court. The Commission was severely criticised for this.44
On 14 March that same year, I participated in a live televised debate on the matter with Floyd Shivambu, the ANCYL’s Spokesperson (now a Member of Parliament (MP) for the EFF). Shivambu argued that it was not possible to accuse a black person of racism, since it was not possible for a black person to be racist: ‘Black people can be despondent and obviously be developing attitude on whatever white people do, but they can never be racist.’45
After the debate, Shivambu said to me that he would like to see ‘white people’ marching to Luthuli House (the ANC’s headquarters) to express their disapproval about the situation. In his view, it would demonstrate that the tables had turned in South Africa and that blacks were now truly in power. I responded that we had already decided to protest on the matter and that he would be receiving correspondence from me shortly.
We gave notice to the Johannesburg Metro Police that we intended organising a public gathering on 19 March 2010. The plan was to gather at Mary Fitzgerald Square in Johannesburg, from where we were to march to Luthuli House, where the offices of the ANCYL were also based, to deliver a memorandum of grievance to Malema. Our argument was that farm murders were a real phenomenon and that the singing of a song about killing white farmers at a political gathering was conducive to a climate in which violence towards farmers was condoned or romanticised.
On 17 March (two days before the intended protest gathering) Shivambu requested the leadership of AfriForum Youth to meet them on the following day. During the meeting, Malema insisted that we withdraw the hate speech charges that had by that time already been filed with the Equality Court. I responded that we would do so if Malema undertook to apologise for singing the song and to refrain from singing it in future. ‘I would never do that!’ he responded angrily.
Malema then explained his singing of the song as follows: He had been singing the song since he was nine years old. It was intended to incite and encourage members of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) to take up arms against the white minority government. He had sung it as a small boy while carrying equipment and weapons in furtherance of the Struggle. There were also many other songs in which violence towards the so-called ama’bhulu (English: Boers) was encouraged. Shivambu explained to me that the word in question did not particularly refer to farmers, but to Afrikaners in general and that the word (which refers to Afrikaners or Boers) is also used to symbolise the evil of white oppression and the exploitation of black people in South Africa. It was clear that their hatred was directed at a particular cultural ethnic group – the Boers.
Not all whites are oppressors, Malema explained, referring to the communist leader Jeremy Cronin as an exception. Institutional apartheid may be dead, said Malema, but apartheid was still a reality and therefore he would continue to sing the song. ‘We have defeated [institutional] apartheid and we will defeat you!’ he said, leaning forward, pointing at me with his finger. He accused AfriForum of being an organisation of ‘white monopoly capital’ (which he had frequently stated as the enemy that had to be defeated) and white people of having too much wealth. White people still owned the banks, farms and expensive cars, he said. I pointed out that a wealthy black elite was emerging in South Africa, upon which he challenged me to name one rich black man. ‘Well, you,’ I said, pointing to the three of them (Malema’s comrade, Steven Ngubeni was the CEO of the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) at the time, for which he earned a salary of more than R2 million (about $160 000) per year).46 They burst out laughing simultaneously, as if they had anticipated that I would refer to their wealth and had planned their response beforehand. The insinuation was false and I (Ernst) was a victim of the media and its lies, said Malema. ‘If that is so, what about Tokyo Sexwale and Cyril Ramaphosa?’ I asked. Malema responded, saying that these men were very poor. ‘They owe the bank money and white people own the bank,’ said Malema. If the court ordered him to stop singing the song, he would encourage his supporters to continue singing it, so that he could dance to the rhythm of the song, he said. He would then, in addition, sing other songs in which violence towards the Boers is encouraged.
I responded that we were wasting each other’s time and that we would see them the following day when we delivered our memorandum. Malema’s anger visibly flared up, with him swinging his finger in our faces again. ‘If you come to Luthuli House tomorrow, what happened to the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) when they came to Shell House (as the ANC’s headquarters was formerly known), is going to happen to you!’ I asked him to clarify what he meant, to which he responded: ‘Come and see.’ He was of course referring to the Shell House Massacre of 28 March 1994, in which 19 members of the IFP were shot dead by members of the ANC when they protested in front of the ANC headquarters.47 This was a chilling and horrible threat.48
The threat worked to an extent. We discussed the matter and decided to go ahead with the gathering in Mary Fitzgerald Square, but not to continue with the march to Luthuli House, because we did not want to test Malema’s integrity at the risk of the people who came to the gathering that day to express their concerns.
Instead, we gathered at Mary Fitzgerald Square as planned and continued with the proceedings there. A small contingency then drove to Luthuli House, equipped with a memorandum and a list containing the names of about 1 600 farmers who had been murdered in recent years. Upon our arrival, we found a barricade of armed South African Police Service (SAPS) officers, joined by a senior official of Luthuli House, who declined to give us his name. We informed them that we were there legally as we had complied with all the legal prerequisites to be there and requested to present our memorandum and the list to the leadership of the ANCYL. They refused to call them, as we expected. We then requested to deliver the documents at the reception desk, but we were refused permission to do so as well. When it became clear that they had been given instructions to make sure that the memorandum was not presented to anyone, AfriForum’s CEO, Kallie Kriel, took the documents and attempted to walk past the police officers into the building. He was immediately pushed out. Visibly angry, Kriel said: ‘You tell Julius we’ll see him in court. What is in here, he’s going to get in court, because you didn’t want to take the documents.’
Kriel then dropped the documents over the police officers’ heads, only to find that the documents were thrown out again. The list containing the names of murdered farmers was not bound, but kept in a folder. As a result, when it was thrown out, all the pages containing the names of the murdered farmers blew into the air, with the pages landing on the sidewalk and in the street. The ANC members who were present stomped on the sheets of paper, kicked them around in the street, crumpled them up and tore them to pieces. Through the scramble, I explained to them that they were literally stepping on the names of murdered farmers, to no avail. Pictures of the torn and crumpled pieces of paper were on the front pages of newspapers the following day49 and a video of the events was published on YouTube.50
Shortly thereafter, AfriForum obtained an interim interdict prohibiting Malema from continuing to sing the song until the matter had been heard in the Equality Court. Malema then went to Zimbabwe to ‘cement ties’ with President Robert Mugabe and sang the song there. He told reporters that the order had been granted by an untransformed judicial system, which was the same one that had been operating during the apartheid system and that the judiciary had been defeated by the Struggle. He added that he was prepared to go to jail for singing the song.51 ‘This is war,’ Malema said:
Arm yourself now, like you did in the past giving us AK-47s to go and fight the regime. But today the Struggle is different. You are arming us to prepare ourselves for another confrontation. Because the Struggle today is a struggle for econo
mic emancipation. And we shall overcome.52
Malema praised Mugabe and the Zimbabwean government for its role in expropriating land from white landowners.
In South Africa, we are just starting … Here in Zimbabwe you are already very far. The land question has been addressed. We are very happy that today you can account for more than 300 000 new farmers, against the 4 000 who used to dominate agriculture. We hear you are now going straight to the mines. That’s what we are going to be doing in South Africa.53
The case of hate speech against Malema was heard in April 2011. The ANC had sent their big leaguers to attend the proceedings, including Madikizela-Mandela, ex-wife of former President Nelson Mandela, Mantashe, the then Secretary General of the ANC, and several members of the ANC’s National Executive Committee.
The ANC had jumped in to join Malema as the second respondent in the matter, arguing that they did have a right to sing about how white people were racist dogs that had to be shot. Of course, the argument was not that they actually wanted to embark on some kind of white genocide, but rather that the song had been sung during the 1980s in defiance against apartheid and that, if the song was sung in the 21st century, it was sung simply to commemorate the Struggle against apartheid. However, Malema diverted from this argument, stating that apartheid and the Struggle was not over and that he was singing the song to entice ANC members to continue with the Struggle.
In cross-examination, Malema was asked why he was convinced that it was inappropriate to sing ‘Kill the Boer, kill the farmer,’ but acceptable to sing ‘Dubula iBhunu’. His response was:
When we were discouraged to sing ‘Kill the Boer, kill the farmer’, the explanation was that ‘the farmer’ is directed at a particular group of people. And what is worse is that farmers are not only whites. You are going to even kill people who are part of your struggle if you want to kill farmers, so you are actually pushing away the potential supporters of your struggle when you say ‘kill the farmer’.54
‘Is that seriously your answer?’ Martin Brassey, SC, advocate for AfriForum, asked Malema. ‘Yes, that is my answer!’ he said angrily. Brassey then concluded that Malema believed that killing white people was not as bad as killing his own supporters.55 In fact, Malema had clearly indicated that the target was not merely white people, but a particular cultural ethnic group.
In his judgment, Judge Colin Lamont found that minority groups are particularly vulnerable. It is precisely the individuals who are members of such minorities who are vulnerable to discriminatory treatment and who in a very special sense must look to the Bill of Rights for protection.56 The song was found to constitute hate speech.57
THE MURDER OF EUGENE TERRE’BLANCHE
On 3 April 2010, the same afternoon that Malema was singing ‘Dubula iBhunu’ in Zimbabwe, an event took place in South Africa that shocked the entire country: Eugene Terre’Blanche (69), notorious leader of the Afrikaner fringe group the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) (English: Afrikaner Resistance Movement), was beaten to death with pipes and pangas (machetes)1on his farm outside Ventersdorp in the North West province.58
He had allegedly been involved in an argument with two employees. His mutilated body was found on his bed, along with a panga and a knobkierie (a traditional weapon, akin to a club). ‘He was hacked to death while he was taking a nap,’ a family friend informed the media.59
Malema responded: ‘We are unshaken. Nobody, including the right-wingers, can intimidate us in that country. We have more important issues to concentrate on than killing an individual … I’m not going to be scared of Boers – I’ve fought them many times before. If they want to fight me, they are welcome.’60
Helen Zille, Democratic Alliance (DA) leader at the time, called on political leaders to reject hate speech such as songs that include the lyrics ‘kill the Boer’. ‘The singing of songs such as “Kill the Boer” creates a climate in which violence is seen as an appropriate response to problems, whether personal or collective,’ she said.61
Two people were arrested for the murder of Terre’Blanche soon thereafter; one 29 years old, the other 15. The murderers were hailed as heroes by the local community for their roles in the killing of Terre’Blanche. Racial friction reached an all-time high during the trial of the suspects.62 Placards outside the court included statements such as ‘Rest in hell’. This particular protestor also waved a white baby doll with a sign around it saying ‘Sorry Martie’ (referring to Terre’Blanche’s widow).63 Many feared that the killing might trigger political violence, dividing the country along racial lines.64
Some people began to fear that a process of ethnic cleansing or genocide of Afrikaners was on the way and Malema was described as ‘an accessory to the wiping out of farmers in South Africa’.65 The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) stated that Malema and the ANC were reinforcing the perception that commercial farmers were under siege.66
At the court proceedings, hundreds of people gathered in support of those on trial for Terre’Blanche’s murder. Terre’Blanche supporters waved the old South African flag, carried posters with slogans such as ‘Die Boere is hier om te bly’ (English: The Boers are here to stay)67 and called on Malema to refrain from singing liberation songs believed to encourage farm murders.68 The crowd in support of the killers, on the other hand, was whistling and ululating in support of the murder of Terre’Blanche.69 ‘We are celebrating the death of a man who has abused us so much,’ shouted one woman.70 When one of the attackers walked out of the court, the crowd started chanting: ‘Viva!’71 As the police drove off with the attackers, the crowd chanted: ‘Hero! Hero!’72
Similar protests occurred when the killers were sentenced to life in prison.73
Malema came out in strong support of the protestors who supported the accused murderers of Terre’Blanche:
Those people who went to Ventersdorp, they must be saluted. Those are real defenders of the revolution ... They must be saluted for standing up for their own country, for who they are at a time when all of us were scared to provide leadership. Our masses rose to the occasion and said: ‘This is our land.’74
Malema added that he did not condone murder, but that the killing of Terre’Blanche should teach white people a lesson about what will happen to them if they were to oppress black people.75
‘SHOOT TO KILL THE BOERE’
In January 2018, during an EFF riot against the use of Afrikaans as medium of instruction in schools serving the Afrikaans community, members of the EFF broke into song:
One of you, you must die.
Shoot to kill the Boere
White man, you must die.
Voertsek white man, voertsek!76
(Voertsek is a South African expression that can be translated as ‘sod off’ or ‘be off’.)
AfriForum sent an attorney’s letter to the leadership of the EFF, asking the organisation to distance itself from this song.77 EFF Spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi praised the behaviour of these members and stated in the media that they would never apologise for singing the song. AfriForum consequently filed charges of hate speech against the EFF in February 2018. The matter has yet to be heard by the Equality Court.78
Various posters that contained hate speech, were also displayed at the rally, including one with the words ‘Please Zuma, give us the guns to defend our democracy. One bullet, one Boerekind’ (English: one Boer child).79
JUNE 2010 – THE MONTH FARM ATTACKS STOPPED
In the month that followed on Malema’s singing of ‘Shoot the Boer’ in March 2010, 18 farm attacks took place, during which eight people were murdered, as is indicated in Figure 21.80 Compared to the monthly averages for 2010, it amounted to an 88% upwards variance in farm attacks and a 51% upwards variance in farm murders.
Figure 21: Farm murders per week during 2010 (The weeks in which Malema sang ‘Shoot the Boer’ are all indicated in red.)81
What is particularly interesting about the year 2010 is that not a single farm murder took place during South Africa’s hosting of
the FIFA World Cup in June that year – an event that was organised and packaged by the South African government to present South Africa to the international community as a fantastic tourism destination. In fact, only one farm attack could be verified during the entire month in which the event took place. This, despite the fact that there had been about two farm attacks per day on average over the previous 18 years.
An abrupt suspension of farm attacks as decisive as was evident during the 2010 FIFA World Cup has never happened since 1990. What is more peculiar is that this followed immediately on a very clear increase in farm attacks and farm murders and that the murders continued in even higher numbers immediately after the conclusion of the event. It is reasonable to ask what sort of power is required to bring about a nationwide cessation of farm attacks of this magnitude. Where is the tap that can be closed, as was evidently done during the FIFA World Cup? And what should be done to close it?
These questions remain unanswered.
Former President of the ANC Youth League Julius Malema when he sang ‘Dubula iBhunu’
(Shoot the Boer) at a political rally in 2010. Malema would later establish his own political
party called the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).
Photo: Gallo Images/Foto24/Felix Dlangamandla
‘When they threw her in the back of the car, I was sitting already in the back seat and it was like a bag of potatoes had been thrown in, because you could feel the thing jerking. Then I heard her moaning. But it wasn’t the same moan. I didn’t realise that they had stuffed a plastic bag down her throat.’
CHAPTER 16