26 April 2011
Disturbingly
both the editorials of the City Press (17 April) and the Mail and Guardian (22
April) seem to blame AfriForum for the spectacle we are witnessing in the
Equality Court in Johannesburg. The populism and lack of thought of City Press’
sentiments are astounding: “On the one side is a group whose only political
currency is the fear and prejudice of its membership and following. To maintain
its relevance, this group finds itself hard-pressed to find proof that their
members face imminent harm from the state or its leading agents. That is why
this group has presented a case that would have been funny had its ignorance
not had potentially damaging consequences for the national cohesion project.”
Ditto
the Mail & Guardian: “... [T]o ban the song is wrong. We don’t think it
rises to the very high level that the Constitution requires before freedom of
speech can be interfered with ... it does not amount to hate speech that is
likely to incite imminent violence.”
The
fact is it has. While it is difficult to make a direct link between the right
to free speech and the incitement to cause harm, the brutal murder of over 2000
farmers and family members since 1994, should shock us out of our complacency.
The decline, furthermore, of 300 000 commercial farms to 37 000
currently, shows that we have a very serious problem on our hands, not to speak
of the deleterious effects these murders have had on the situation of food
security - a problem compounded by a glaringly flawed land restitution process,
which as a result has left over 80% of black farmers destitute due to
inadequate post-restitution support.
These
politically correct newspapers would undoubtedly have argued otherwise had the
slogan been: “Kill the kaffir, kill the miner.” It is for this reason that the
Constitution states precisely that while “everyone has the right to freedom of
expression,” this right does not extend to “incitement of imminent violence; or
advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and
that constitutes incitement to cause harm.” To imply as City Press does, that this
is payback time for AfriForum, the villain in the saga, who, by bringing this
matter to court, is responsible for damaging the “national cohesion project,”
is to forever deny them their right to bring charges, given their/our past. It
needs saying that the slogan “Kill the Boer, kill the Farmer” was wrong even as a struggle song and is
as evil as “One settler, one bullet.” Justifying these wrongs in the name of
apartheid, gives carte blanche to yesterday’s liberators to become tomorrow’s
oppressors.
In
the 1980s, Aggrey Klaaste warned that if we allow our children to lead the
struggle and do not check their boundless militancy, the day will come in
post-apartheid South Africa when we shall regret having shirked our parental
duty. We see it now with the likes of Julius Malema. That he is allowed to
enter the court with body guards draped with assault rifles is a flagrant
violation of the rule of law. Worse, he is aided and abetted by ANC leaders who
are even more contemptuous and who blame the media and Afrikaners for the “Malemaphobia”
raging in the country. Well, Mr Mantashe, we do have Malemaphobia. When
buffoons like Malema and Shavambu are led to believe that they are the kingmakers
in returning the ANC to power, then our future looks scary.
This
brazen display of weaponry in the courts, with police standing idly by, is a
sign of things to come. Andries Tatane, Ficksburg activist and protester, is
gunned down in worse than apartheid-style aggression, a horrendous image, emblazoned
across CNN’s screens for the entire world to see. The community of Ficksburg is
righty enraged at the heavy-handedness of the SAPS with its “shoot to kill”
culture. The increasing militarization of the police epitomises in small
measure what is happening in Libya today. Are we acquiring weapons so that we
can use it against our own citizens should they rise up against their own
oppressors? Is the ANC taking lessons from their friend Gaddafi, who is
crushing his own citizens with all his military might for daring to demand that
he step down after 40 years?
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