Posted by Madibeng Kgwete: 20 April 2011
Depending on which side of South Africa’s colourful history you most associate with and what your views are on contemporary socio-economic realities, Julius Malema, president of the ANC Youth League, could be described in completely opposing terms at the same time: a populist demagogue, a racist, a charismatic leader, a fearless truth-teller.
As it is now alleged in the hate speech trial brought against him by Afri Forum and the Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU) for his singing of the anti-apartheid struggle song dubul’ ibhunu (or shoot the Boer), Malema can sometimes also be a menace to some. He also allegedly incites his supporters to carry out racial attacks.
Counsel for AfriForum and TAU have argued in court that their clients are worried about Malema’s singing of the song in post-apartheid South Africa because the song (or chant as it's been called by a "music expert") incites violence against a particular grouping of the white population, the Boer.
Testifying in the case, AfriForum’s deputy CEO, Ernst Roets, said Malema uses violent language and threatening gestures and has even threatened a delegation of Afrikaners at a meeting that if they marched to the ANC’s headquarters in Johannesburg, “what happened to IFP members outside Shell House in 1994” would happen to them.
“I’m not a struggle expert,” said Roets, “so I asked what he meant.” At this point leaning forward in his chair, Malema allegedly told the Afrikaner delegation: “Come protest and you will see.”
Quite why many people fear Malema is a matter that goes far beyond the young man himself. The Malema I have known from a young age (and whom I had a chat with following a meeting in 2010) is anything but threatening.
In real life, he is not even what he appears to be on television, radio or newspapers – both in terms of physical stature and in tone. In real life, Malema is shorter than what he appears like on TV. Also, he is more youthful in appearance.
When I met him at a gathering where he addressed a group of foreign journalists in Johannesburg one evening in 2010, Malema never seemed to value his own presence. He listens very attentively to every word spoken to him (even greetings).
It may very well be a psychological issue: that Malema has been told many times that he’s a half-literate idiot who barely passed matric. When you speak to him, he listens as if saying: “I don’t know anything. Please educate me.”
At the gathering with international journalists, the room was packed with between 80 and 100 people, but there were only about six or seven black people amongst them – Malema and his spokespesperson Floyd Shivambu included.
When I went to speak to him after his address (during which he likened his frequent controversial outbursts to those of young Nelson Mandela), he asked me as one of the few black people in the audience: “Do you work with these people?”
“No,” I responded. “I work for the GCIS”. I didn’t think he’d care to ask any further question – or even to know what the GCIS stands for. And he responded: “Oh, Government Communications! I see.”
And he wasn’t finished asking me questions: “So where do you come from?” When I told him I’m from the Sekhukhune area in Limpopo, he smiled and said: “You see, when I speak about mines, I think you’ll relate with the situation I am talking about.”
Then he said in Sepedi: “These people (referring to white mine bosses) are eating our resources. The whole Sekhukhune is poor. There is dust all over, and they are busy grabbing away from us in broad daylight.”
The menacing Malema that is being referred to in many public platforms – and now in the on-going hate speech trial – seems, to a black person, like an invention. But to whites, the fear that they get when they listen to Malema is in fact fear of the kind of radical change that they believe they had put behind their backs through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
The TRC served its purpose in as far as bringing erstwhile political adversaries closer is concerned, but it also served another purpose: to assure the white man that the possessions he acquired, either legally or illegally, during apartheid were protected from any form of violent dispossession in a post-apartheid dispensation.
A common theme amongst many conservative South Africans is that their country is on the way of becoming another Zimbabwe, and this point was also made in the hate speech case. Reference was made to the fear amongst Afrikaners of South Africa veering towards “a failed state.”
Many white South Africans are still afraid of blacks in general; and Malema, as the self-styled leader of angry, jobless and poor black youth, must not be allowed to provoke this potentially dangerous group of people who would have little to lose even if the country plunges into another Zimbabwe.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
UK Prime Minister to foreign students: go back home
British Prime Minister David Cameron has called on immigrants in his country to embrace British values, learn the language and urged foreign students to return home after completing their studies.
In a speech prepared for delivery today at a Conservative Party conference, Cameron said his government was implementing a variety of measures to control immigration in line with election promises he made last year.
The 44-year-old Cameron said immigrants’ inability and unwillingness to learn the English language “has created a kind of discomfort and disjointedness in some neighbourhoods.”
Between 1997 and 2009, 2.2 million more people migrated to Britain than left the country to live abroad, and Cameron is aiming to reduce the figures to the 1980s levels when Margaret Thatcher’s administration implemented strict controls.
Cameron blamed foreign students for the current surge in British-bound migration, saying “a lot of those students bring people with them to this country … husbands, wives, children. Indeed, last year, 32,000 visas were issued to the dependents of students.”
From now onwards, he said, only post-graduate students can bring dependants. “And we're making sure that if people come over here to study, they should be studying not working … and that when they've finished their studies, they go home unless they are offered a graduate-level skilled job, with a minimum salary.”
Whilst answering to the concerns of anti-immigration groupings within the Conservative Party and the broader right-wing movement, the speech has predictably been slammed as being “very unwise” by the Liberal Democrats, who are in a power-sharing government with Cameron’s Conservative Party.
Speaking to the BBC, Liberal Democrats' Vincent Cable, who serves as the coalition government’s Business Secretary, said the prime minister’s speech contained aims that were not part of the coalition agreement between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats.
The speech also “risked inflaming extremism" and is “very unwise”, said Cable, adding that immigration from outside Europe “is crucial to British recovery and growth".
In a speech prepared for delivery today at a Conservative Party conference, Cameron said his government was implementing a variety of measures to control immigration in line with election promises he made last year.
The 44-year-old Cameron said immigrants’ inability and unwillingness to learn the English language “has created a kind of discomfort and disjointedness in some neighbourhoods.”
Between 1997 and 2009, 2.2 million more people migrated to Britain than left the country to live abroad, and Cameron is aiming to reduce the figures to the 1980s levels when Margaret Thatcher’s administration implemented strict controls.
Cameron blamed foreign students for the current surge in British-bound migration, saying “a lot of those students bring people with them to this country … husbands, wives, children. Indeed, last year, 32,000 visas were issued to the dependents of students.”
From now onwards, he said, only post-graduate students can bring dependants. “And we're making sure that if people come over here to study, they should be studying not working … and that when they've finished their studies, they go home unless they are offered a graduate-level skilled job, with a minimum salary.”
Whilst answering to the concerns of anti-immigration groupings within the Conservative Party and the broader right-wing movement, the speech has predictably been slammed as being “very unwise” by the Liberal Democrats, who are in a power-sharing government with Cameron’s Conservative Party.
Speaking to the BBC, Liberal Democrats' Vincent Cable, who serves as the coalition government’s Business Secretary, said the prime minister’s speech contained aims that were not part of the coalition agreement between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats.
The speech also “risked inflaming extremism" and is “very unwise”, said Cable, adding that immigration from outside Europe “is crucial to British recovery and growth".
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Don't ban "kill the boer" song
Posted by Madibeng Kgwete: 12 April 2011
The ongoing hate speech trial of ANC Youth League President Julius Malema at the Equality Court in Johannesburg is likely to introduce new boundaries within which freedom of speech and freedom of expression can be applied.
According to Section 16 (2) (b) and (c) of the Constitution, the right to freedom of expression does not include “incitement of imminent violence” or “advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm.”
Malema’s legal representatives argue in court papers that liberation songs such as "Shoot the Boer" are not sung with the intention to incite violence, harm, degrade or humiliate any person or group of persons.
The songs are "simply part of the heritage of the struggle and must be understood in the historical context of the role of song in liberation struggles all over the world,” Malema’s lawyer, Vincent Maleka, argues.
Meanwhile, a study by TNS Research Surveys has revealed that 74% of metro adults feel that the phrases "Kill the boer" or "Kill the farmer" constitute hate speech.
If the court bans the song or certain parts of its lyrics, that may narrow the space within which freedom of expression can be applied.
If the court grants Malema the right to continue singing the song anywhere anytime, that may also be interpreted as advocating racial hatred.
Now, what should the court do? Allow the song to be sung by (or in the presence of) anyone except Malema? Ban it completely?
Any of the two extremes (permission or ban) appears undesirable at the moment, and the court may need to explore a neutral and innovative solution.
The court should not be so heavy-handed as to force South Africans to forget the past, all because of Malema's actions.
In the same vein, young political leaders should be taught – through court decisions if need be – to realise the power that they have to polirise society through irresponsible public utterances/behaviour.
Under the circumstances, the most appropriate ruling, it appears, would be to prescribe circumstances and conditions under which the song may be sung.
For example, when a public event is held to commemorate the life and times of Peter Mokaba, him who made the song popular, why should “kill the boer” not be sung on such an occasion as part of tributes to the man?
To introduce an outright ban on the singing of the song by Malema or anyone would be extreme, particularly given the fact that no evidence exists to prove that the killing of white Afrikaner farmers (boere) can be linked to the song.
The ongoing hate speech trial of ANC Youth League President Julius Malema at the Equality Court in Johannesburg is likely to introduce new boundaries within which freedom of speech and freedom of expression can be applied.
According to Section 16 (2) (b) and (c) of the Constitution, the right to freedom of expression does not include “incitement of imminent violence” or “advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm.”
Malema’s legal representatives argue in court papers that liberation songs such as "Shoot the Boer" are not sung with the intention to incite violence, harm, degrade or humiliate any person or group of persons.
The songs are "simply part of the heritage of the struggle and must be understood in the historical context of the role of song in liberation struggles all over the world,” Malema’s lawyer, Vincent Maleka, argues.
Meanwhile, a study by TNS Research Surveys has revealed that 74% of metro adults feel that the phrases "Kill the boer" or "Kill the farmer" constitute hate speech.
If the court bans the song or certain parts of its lyrics, that may narrow the space within which freedom of expression can be applied.
If the court grants Malema the right to continue singing the song anywhere anytime, that may also be interpreted as advocating racial hatred.
Now, what should the court do? Allow the song to be sung by (or in the presence of) anyone except Malema? Ban it completely?
Any of the two extremes (permission or ban) appears undesirable at the moment, and the court may need to explore a neutral and innovative solution.
The court should not be so heavy-handed as to force South Africans to forget the past, all because of Malema's actions.
In the same vein, young political leaders should be taught – through court decisions if need be – to realise the power that they have to polirise society through irresponsible public utterances/behaviour.
Under the circumstances, the most appropriate ruling, it appears, would be to prescribe circumstances and conditions under which the song may be sung.
For example, when a public event is held to commemorate the life and times of Peter Mokaba, him who made the song popular, why should “kill the boer” not be sung on such an occasion as part of tributes to the man?
To introduce an outright ban on the singing of the song by Malema or anyone would be extreme, particularly given the fact that no evidence exists to prove that the killing of white Afrikaner farmers (boere) can be linked to the song.
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