The ANC is taking the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) and Afrikaner civil rights group AfriForum to the Equality Court for running “a campaign of hatred” that it claims has racially polarised South Africa and inflamed racial tension.
ANC lawyer Siyabonga Mahlangu said he is finalising court papers for the case, based on the FF+ and AfriForum’s claims that ANC youth leader Julius Malema’s singing of “dubul’ ibhunu” (shoot the boer) results in the murder of farmers.
“Their campaign is polarising our society. They’re saying Malema’s songs are causing the death of Afrikaner farmers, when the facts speak to the contrary. They’re claiming sole victimhood from the struggle that our country experienced,” Mahlangu said.
“It’s hate speech. It’s conceivable that the death threats against Malema emanate from this campaign of hatred.”
AfriForum deputy chief executive Alana Bailey said she was “very concerned” that her organisation was being made a scapegoat when Malema was inflaming tension.
“To say we’re running a ‘campaign of hatred’ is a dangerous allegation in a so-called democracy,” she said. “It could incite people against us.”
FF+ leader Pieter Mulder said there would be no point in his party running a “campaign of hatred”, given the murder of more than 3 000 farmers since 1994. Mulder said he had rushed home from an overseas trip after learning that AWB leader Eugene Terre’Blanche had been murdered on his farm last weekend.
“Whatever we’ve said has been a reaction to our frustrations that the ANC seems paralysed in acting against Mr Malema, who has been staging a hatred campaign against farmers and whites broadly,” he said.
The FF+ laid a criminal charge against Malema three weeks ago over alleged hate speech and incitement to violence.
This week ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe announced that ANC members should be “circumspect” in singing songs that contained words that might contribute to racial polarisation. But this did not amount to banning any song.
Despite its court action, the ANC national executive committee still intends debating whether to remove the words “dubul’ ibhunu” from liberation songs at its meeting next month.
“We’ll be assessing whether it’s appropriate to keep singing these songs or to remove words that people find threatening,” said spokesperson Jackson Mthembu.
Mahlangu said the ANC wanted to ensure that court judgments did not “wipe out” struggle songs that formed part of the national democratic revolution. “It will be in the public interest that they are preserved, but within the sensitivities of a society in transition dealing with reconciliation,” he said.
Contempt of court
This week the ANC applied for leave to appeal against the ruling by South Gauteng High Court judge Leon Halgryn banning the singing of struggle songs containing the words “dubul’ ibhunu”.
The ruling followed an application by Delmas businessman Willem Harmse to prevent his colleague, Mohammed Vawda, from using the words on banners and singing them during a planned anti-crime march.
“We need to appeal this judgement, which wipes out the country’s history and heritage in one stroke,” Mahlangu said.
Malema fell foul of the Halgryn ruling by continuing to sing struggle songs with the offending lyrics.
The South Gauteng High Court granted AfriForum an interdict barring him from singing Ayesaba Amagwala (the cowards are scared) or any similar song that incited violence. Judge Eberhard Bertelsmann ruled that the order would be effective until the equality court heard the matter. A directive hearing has been set for May 3.
Undeterred, Malema again sang “dubul’ ibhunu” during his trip to Zimbabwe last weekend, where he met President Robert Mugabe.
This week AfriForum and Solidarity laid contempt of court charges against Malema at the Brooklyn police station, arguing that as the interdict was granted against him as a person, it applied wherever he sang the song.