Pages

20121031

ANC drops appeal against Kill Boer hatespeech song

Kill the Boer Shoot the Boer genocidal hatespeech song: ruling ANC party reaches out of court settlement with Afriforum civil rights group

City Press  writes October 31 2012  that the ruling ANC-party has dropped its  court appeal against the Shoot the Boer song in a settlement with Afrifoum. Its spokesman Kallie Kriel said they were ‘happy about the out of court settlement which was reached’ over the song. Its attorney Willie Spies said in the Oct 31 2012 press conference announcing it that this was ‘a greater victory for Afriforum because the ANC itself has now agreed to not sing this song any more.’

 SA Judge Colin Lamont had ruled this song  as hatespeech -- and had issued a court-order banning people from singing it in public, as it incited genocidal violence against the vulnerable and very small Afrikaner minority. Afriforum. link  AfriForum's  Willie Spies told the Mail & Guardian on Wednesday the deal was struck at 8.30pm on Tuesday night after a day-long mediation on Friday. "The settlement that has been reached provides for three things.

  • Firstly, the ANC acknowledged that certain struggle songs contain lyrics that originate from a specific era in history which today can be hurtful to minority communities.
  • Secondly, the ANC and Malema undertook to encourage and counsel their supporters and members to refrain from singing songs that could contain hurtful phrases.
  • Thirdly, the parties committed to continued informal debate about cultural heritage and freedom," said Spies.

"As a result, the ANC abandoned its appeal and AfriForum and the Transvaal Agricultural Union abandoned the order granted by [the Supreme Court of Appeal] with all the parties consenting to the substitution of the ... order with this agreement," he added.

The appeal court on September 27 wrote to the affected parties, asking that they explore the possibility of mediation, which was agreed to under the facilitation of Charles Nupen. Last year, the struggle song containing the words "Dubul' iBhunu" (shoot the Boer) was declared hate speech by Judge Colin Lamont in the South Gauteng High Court.  AfriForum took the matter to court after Malema continued singing the song at youth league rallies.  Lamont ruled the words used in the song were "derogatory, dehumanising and hurtful". The judge interdicted all members of the ANC from singing the song in public or at private functions. http://mg.co.za/article/2012-10-31-00-shoot-the-boer-debate-put-to-rest

 ZA president Zuma sang Kill the Boer at ANC centenary celebrations: Bloemfontein after the song was ruled hatespeech: when will he now be formally charged tried as youth league ex-president Malema had been?

http://youtu.be/femMZ7Hu6dQ

 

AFRIFORUM MAKES DEAL WITH ANC OVER SHOOT BOER HATESONG OCT31 2012                                                                Will Zuma et al now stop singing this song?

This still leaves the question whether South African president Jacob Zuma and his followers will now stop singing this banned song?  Also: why isn’t the ANC-alligned socalled non-governmental organisation ‘The SA Human Rights Commission,’ investigating the formal complaints against SA Pres Zuma – amongst others for singing this song in Bloemfontein in January 2012 AFTER it had been ruled hatespeech?

Transvaal Agricultural Union 'satisfied with mediation Agreement in Malema hate speech case"
1.      TAU SA wants to express its satisfaction with the settlement agreement that has been reached between the ANC, Mr Malema, AfriForum and TAU SA, pertaining to the song "shoot the Boer", which matter was enrolled for hearing in the Supreme Court of Appeal on Thursday 1 November 2012.
2.      TAU SA appreciates the fact that the ANC, in particular, has indicated that it is crucial to mutually recognise and respect the rights of all communities to celebrate and protect their cultural heritage and freedom, and that certain words in certain struggle songs may be experienced as hurtful by members of minority communities, and may no longer be applicable in South Africa today.
3.      TAU SA points out that the agreement relates to other issues to be discussed in future between the parties, other than struggle songs.
4.      TAU SA will now take all steps necessary to continue formal dialogue with the leaders of the ANC pertaining to better understanding of the cultural heritages and aspirations of minority groups, including Afrikaners.  TAU SA will most definitely insist that such dialogue should continue at the highest level.
5.      TAU SA also appreciates the fact that the ANC and Mr Malema committed to counselling and encouraging their respective leadership and supporters to act with restraint pertaining to any hurtful experiences that may be caused by the expression and use of struggle songs.
6.      TAU SA will be monitoring closely the development in this regard ant the steps that the ANC and Mr Malema will take in this regard.
7.      TAU SA emphasises the fact that there is wide recognition amongst farmers and Afrikaners in South Africa that violent crime, including farm attacks and murders, remain a huge problem in South Africa, and that such crimes are committed against the background of uncertainties caused by the continuation of the freedom struggle of the ANC and which is in particular pushed forward by the ANC Youth League, in furtherance of the National Democratic Revolution.
8.      TAU SA will therefore engage the ANC in further discussions at the highest level possible on the issue of violent crimes, farm attacks and farm murders.
9.      TAU SA records again that farm murders on white farmers remains a huge concern in South Africa, and that it is investigating the question whether it could be described as genocide in terms of the international law.  1372 white farmers (TAU stats are low estimates)  have been killed since 1990 out of a total of 1591. 

  • 86% of all farm murders have been committed against white farmers.  85 farm attacks were executed during 2011 and 106 during 2012. 
  • The ‘normal’ murder rate according to the current available statistics is 31 persons per 100 000.00 of South Africa's population, whereas for white farmers it amounts to 96 per 100 000.00 citizens. 
  • Therefore white farmers have a three times higher risk of being murdered than any other citizen

10.  TAU SA is therefore appreciative of the fact that the ANC and Mr Malema have at long last agreed to engage with TAU SA on the issues furthering a climate of armed violence and violent crimes, and to address these issues not only in discussions with TAU SA, but also among their leaders and supporters.

11.   The full mediation agreement can be downloaded from
http://www.tlu.co.za/index.php/en/home-eng/41-english/news/293-the-media-agreement-in-the-julius-malema-hate-speech-appeal.html

http://youtube.be/6fzRSE_p1Ys

 http://www.citypress.co.za/Politics/News/Shoot-the-Boer-appeal-canned-20121031

http://www.genocidewatch.org/SouthAfrica.html

 

War is Upon South Africa

Top political scientist says the public distrust of the ruling ANC-party is so great that South Africa now is being plunged in a state of Warfare: http://www.neo-genocide.com/farmitracker/reportsview/476

War is Upon South Africa:A Secretive, territorialised violence of a low-intensity war, of counter-insurgency, is upon us’ warns Richard Pithouse, who teaches politics at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa:

Published by the South African Civil Society Information Service (Johannesburg)

30 October 2012 - Pithouse writes: "When COSATU and the Communist Party have to rely on the police and their stun grenades, rubber bullets and, by some accounts, live ammunition to force their way into a stadium against the opposition of striking workers it is clear that their assumption of a permanent right to leadership is facing a serious challenge from below. It's equally clear that the ruling party and its allies intend to force obedience rather than to seek to renegotiate support or enable democratic engagement, that the police aren't even making a pretence of being loyal to the law rather than the ruling party and that this is the way that Blade Nzimande likes it.

WAR IS UPON US BY POLITICAL SCIENCE PROF PITHOUSE OCT302012

   Misuse of SAPS to defend authority of ANC in Rustenburg:

The misuse of the police to defend the authority of the ruling party in Rustenburg is no exception to a broadly democratic consensus. In fact it has become a routine feature of political life. At the same time as the drama was unfolding in Rustenburg on Saturday a meeting with technical experts to discuss a plan to upgrade the Harry Gwala shack settlement on the East Rand was summarily banned by the police on the grounds that it was a 'security threat'. The settlement is in urgent need of services as basic as water and refuse removal but millions have been spent on a pavilion in memory of Oliver Tambo adjacent to the settlement. As the ANC's role in the struggles against apartheid is memorialised that memory is simultaneously desecrated as it is mobilised to legitimate the increasingly violent containment of popular dissent.

Ruling SA party’s hegemony on the mines in Rustenburg has collapsed:

RUSTENBURG AMPLATS VIOLENCE STOP FIRE ENGINES FROM DOUSING TORCHED MINESHAFT AND SUB STATION OCT302012

   He writes: “The collapse of the ruling party's hegemony on the mines in Rustenburg is not the first time that the ANC has lost control of a territory where it once took its right to rule for granted. In early 2006 the ANC was, despite a large police presence and a large contingent of supporters bussed in from elsewhere, unable to go ahead with a rally to be addressed by S'bu Ndebele, the then Premier of KwaZulu-Natal, in the Kennedy Road shack settlement in Durban. Some years later the ANC eventually took that space back with the open use of violence organised through party structures with the support of the police. But despite the announcement, made by a senior SACP member, that the state had decided to 'disband' the movement that had won popular support in Kennedy Road, and despite tremendous intimidation and the gross misuse of the police and the criminal justice system to try and effect this ban, that movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo endures. The rupture in Rustenburg may also cohere into an enduring force. And there will be more ruptures to come.

   “There are important respects in which the politics developed in and around Marikana is very different from that developed in and around Kennedy Road seven years earlier.

People have decided to take their future into their own hands – to speak for themselves where they live and work:

STRIKERS SA ESCALATING COMMUNISTS DESTROYING MINEINFRASTRUCTURE SA

“But one of the things that these two points of rupture do have in common is a firm insistence on the right of people in struggle, people who have decided to take their future into their own hands, to speak for themselves.

  • This shared suspicion of authorised forms of local representation, and the consequent desire of people to represent themselves where they live and work, could, along with other points of connection, ranging from familial links to a shared experience of repression, provide common ground for linking struggles in urban shack settlements and on the mines. It has, in itself, no predetermined political character but, amongst other potentials, some of which could well be marked by a dangerous counter-brutality, the rejection of the ruling party's local mechanisms for sustaining political control does carry the possibility for a renewal of democratic possibility.

   South Africa’s political class is treated as if it is above the law…

The path that winds from Polokwane to Kennedy Road and on to Marikana and Nkandla and then up, past the reach of our gaze and over the horizon, is not taking us towards anything like the kinds of societies imagined in the Freedom Charter or the Constitution. The only visible transition on offer is one in which liberal democracy is increasingly replaced with a system in which the political class is treated as if it is above the law, the state is openly used as an instrument for the political class to accumulate rather than to redistribute wealth and power and people engaged in certain kinds of popular dissent are treated as if they are beneath the law.

Police violence, including torture and murder, as well as state sanction for political violence by ANC supporters and political assassination have all become familiar features of our political life.

   Powerful figures in the ruling alliance openly speak the language of war:… against all dissent:

And powerful figures and forces in the ruling alliance from Jacob Zuma to Sidumo Dlamini, the Communist Party, MK veterans, SADTU and others are openly speaking the language of war. They may say that the war is ‘on the enemy within, enemy agents, neoliberals, imperialists, criminals, enemies of the national-democratic revolution and counter-revolutionaries ‘-- but what they really mean is that they do not intend to accept popular dissent as legitimate or to engage it through democratic institutions.

Instead it is proposed that dissent be dealt with by the police and on occasion the army, as well as counter-mobilisation that aims to destroy rather than to engage and which is already often armed, and, in Sidumo Dlamini's view, MK (UmkhontoWeSizwe).

Secretive, territorialised violence of a low-intensity war – a war of counter-insurgency --  is upon us

“War, generally not the war of open manoeuvre that we saw in Marikana and which we've seen, although with nothing like the same degree of murderous intent, in shack settlements across the country in recent years but rather the scattered, often secretive and frequently highly territorialised violence of low intensity war, of counter-insurgency, is upon us. The Kennedy Road, eTwatwa, Makause and Zakheleni shack settlements have all experienced this since Polokwane (Pietersburg).  

The figures in the ANC that talk of ‘a return to principled leadership’ have no material base from which they could make a serious attempt to challenge the capture of the party and, thereby, the state by factions that are both predatory and authoritarian. For this reason their discourse functions, irrespective of their intentions, to legitimate the party rather than to organise or represent a last ditch attempt to save it. And, with the exception of the metal worker's union, Marikana has marked the end of COSATU's claim to democratic credibility and moral authority.

  • If there is to be a renewal of democratic possibilities it will have to be undertaken against the ruling party and its allies.

   A popular struggle against a post-colonial state is a very different thing to a struggle against domination:

Popular struggle against a post-colonial state is a very different thing to a national liberation struggle against an internationally discredited form of domination. But the time has come when we have to, like the generations that confronted the end of the illusions in postcolonial states elsewhere, face a future in which defeat of democratic and progressive aspirations is the most likely outcome of the ruthless intersection between elite nationalism and capitalism.

And while there are some examples of popular struggles in the postcolony that have attained some critical mass in recent years they have also, as in Haiti and Bolivia, had to confront serious limitations. There is no easy route out of this crisis.

The line dividing the political from the economic has been drawn to sustain both privilege and exclusion:

   Nonetheless it is clear that the only viable resolution is one that includes the majority of us. This could take the form of an authoritarian and even quasi-fascist response to the crisis. But it could also take the form of a democratic project that seeks to move beyond the liberal consensus that reduced democracy to voting, court action and NGO campaigns and to build the political power of the dispossessed from the ground up. But if an insurgent project of this nature is to have any enduring success it will have to understand that the line dividing the political from the economic has been drawn to sustain both privilege and exclusion and that wealth, power and the structures that sustain them need to be subject to serious critique. This would put such a project at odds with most of the media and civil society as well as the ruling party making it, to say the least, a risky endeavour. But if political empowerment doesn't translate into material empowerment - into land, housing, decent incomes and decent education - it will be little more than a detour on the road that has already taken us from Polokwane to Nkandla with our journey marked out in a steadily accumulating record of intimidation and blood.

   The challenges that confront us are tremendous.

But when war is announced there are only two real choices - to resist or to submit.