AfriForum’s desperate bid to distort Struggle heritage

THE recent trip by President Cyril Ramaphosa and his delegation to America produced different results for different people. The official position from the government is that the trip was meant to restart trade relations between South Africa and America. As such, proponents of this view argue that the trip was a huge success.

- PROF BHEKI MNGOMEZULU

However, a counterview is that the trip caused more harm than good to South Africa’s global image. According to this view, some of the utterances made at the Oval Office were unwarranted, factually flawed and devoid of context.

Apart from the questionable pictures of the graves which allegedly carried the bodies of Afrikaners killed in South Africa (who were not from South Africa), there were other developments which happened in that meeting.

One of them was when Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen told US President Donald Trump that the reason for the DA to join the coalition government led by Ramaphosa was solely to keep the EFF and MKP away from the Union Buildings. This raised questions about the honesty in the formation of the coalition government.

The climax of the Oval Office meeting was when Trump played a video of Julius Malema singing his famous song, Kill the Boer, the Farmer, and the other song which was sung by former president Jacob Zuma, which says Sizobadubula ngo mbayimbayi [We are going to shoot them with artillery].

I will focus on Julius Malema’s song because it is the one that has caused controversy. Even people who are supposed to know better fell into the trap of Trump’s propaganda.

The question becomes: Does this song represent symbolic relevance or is it a violation of human rights and an instigator of racial violence?

To answer this question, political expediency and political parochialism will not offer any assistance. Only objectivity, rationality and context will assist in arriving at a credible conclusion.