The man who sings it is an extreme left-wing who does anything to get his party media attention. He will do anything to exploit the uneducated. He lives a rich lifestyle, wearing designer clothes and Gucci shoes while wearing overalls and preaching hate. He openly supports Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
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:
"Kill all Boers doesn't actually mean 'kill all Boers'" is stupid and wrong (especially considering the history of SA and what people like Winnie Mandela were up to), but "it's a literal call for genocide" is also stupid and hysterical.
This issue is easy to understand as long as you're familiar with the concept of the 'phatic expression'[0]. It is perfectly possible for these folks to say 'kill the Boer' without actually meaning it to be a call for genocide, instead meaning something along the lines of "fuck the Boer".
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 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.
I'm very far left, and was in South Africa when this chant was coined (more than a decade ago I think). It is completely pro-violence. As for Musk's commentary: even a broken clock is correct twice a day - although I still wish he would shut the fuck up, he emigrated _during_ apartheid.
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).
Acc to his biography, he left to escape the mandatory conscription by the Apartheid, so take it as you will.
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.
Why do you perform this “well, they have a reason to be upset” ritualistic apologia before you condemn racist murder and the rhetoric that provokes it?
If you contort your thinking enough, 1920s Germans suffered miserably and unfairly and we could never comprehend their suffering, us being so fragile. How can we judge them for what they did later?
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.
I have been to these dorpies in the Vrystaat and can see why farmers are attacked.
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.
> In the middle of a sea of poverty they live with a homestead with cars,stuff and guns
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.
Land holdings are usually inherited but they definitely have more i.r.o material possessions compared to say farm workers or the folks living in the "location" outside of town.
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.
