Kill the Boer Song Fuels Backlash in South Africa and US
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
And his and others' excuse that it is a political song and should not be taken literally is an insult to what we South Africans had to overcome to have a true democracy.
He is a dangerous idiot and you just have to read a bit on him to come to this conclusion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Malema#Hate_speech_and_...
This describes nearly every American politician, regardless of party affiliation.
On the other hand, it's easy to understand why folks who don't have a history of singing this song would hear the actual meaning, rather than the 'phatic' meaning, of the words. And given that the singers are on the record advocating for the seizure of Boer land, it seems kind of silly to just take their word for it when they claim that this line of the song has a 'phatic' meaning rather than a literal one.
Regardless, it seems clear that the party use the term to instill and stoke racial hatred:
> Nomalanga Mkhize, a historian at Nelson Mandela University, said of the chant: “Young people feel that it rouses them up when they sing it today. I don’t think that they intend it to mean any harm.”
We don't actually want to kill you, but the kids sure do love singing about it!
Also, is anyone else worried about the Times? Is their spin machine mis-calibrated? I know they're left-leaning, but carrying water for racist communists seems a bit much, even for them.
I believe it is because they pander to an audience that suffers from Elon Derangement Syndrome: those people think that no matter what Elon says or does, it's wrong, if he asks something he's even wrong to ask it. Now that Trump is in the background, these people needed someone they can hate passionately, and to me it looks like it's Elon since he took over Twitter.
The issue about farm killings is extremely complex. On the one hand you can understand the anger towards the white farmer, but on the other hand more murder and dispossession is not the answer to murder and dispossession: https://www.accord.org.za/ajcr-issues/farm-attacks-or-white-.... Either way, it's real and Malema is encouraging it.
Malema is extremely separatist and xenophobic, or racist if you use the modern definition of the term. "Kill the boer" is definitely fighting words, and "western" commentators do not have the lived experience to add valuable perspective to the issue. The race situation in America is not the same as the race situation in South Africa (the race situation is all over the spectrum in Africa, let alone inconsistent with western problems).
In the middle of a sea of poverty they live with a homestead with cars,stuff and guns - during the court case they could not prove ONE incident where the criminals were influenced by the song.
But the song has no place today, but the EFF knows their support base (stick it to the white man) but fortunately most South Africans don't support them and their agenda.
Also the leader the FF+ was a former general of the old regime and the TRC did not have kind words for him and his mates - they are milking this as well.
They have been stuck at 10% of the vote for 10 years now.
I cycled across South Africa and stayed many nights with white farmers. (Since the land is fenced off, it’s not easy to just stop and camp. You have to find the road up to the farmhouse and ask the farmer’s permission. It usually results in an invitation to dinner and to sleep in the guest bedroom.) What surprised me is how cash-poor a lot of those farming families were, in spite of their land holdings. Yes, they had a higher standard of living than in the townships, but they seemed of only modest wealth in a general developed-world context. They seemed poor compared to some Johannesburg black elites. Farmers complained that their children had moved away not necessarily due to violence but rather for improved financial prospects.
Farming is hard - the debt you need to take on and being beholden to the climate - reckon these days only the big Agri-Corps like Beefmaster near Kimberley is making money.
Indigenous Africans were dispossessed, murdered, and enslaved. Sugarcoating it for us fragile white people does no good.
Yes, mostly by fellow Africans...
I just wanted to point out that the popular belief that white Europeans created African slavery out of thin air and hunted them down like animals to sell is false.
South Africa doesn't know what to do with the flipped around situation; first they were oppressed by the minority... then the tables turned and the oppressor became the oppressed (or whatever the applicable term is), and they are now at a cross roads.