Chant fuelled by lingering racial inequities

ON MARCH 21, EFF leader Julius Malema a rabble-rouser of note disrupted South Africa's national peace and comfort when he chanted the controversial political slogan "kill the boer, kill the farmer".

- 

One thing is for sure: Malema knew too well that no one, not even AfriForum, could haul him before the courts.

In 2022, AfriForum lost the legal battle after taking the EFF and Malema to the Equality Court over the public chanting of "kill the boer, kill the farmer".

The predominantly white-aligned civil rights group had argued that Malema's chanting of the Struggle rendition in public incited violence against white Afrikaner farmers. However, Justice Edwin Molahleli, who presided over the matter, could find no evidence of a link between the chanting of the slogan and the attacks or murders in the country's farmlands.

The court ruled that the song, or chant, was a struggle-related historical and cultural expression rather than a direct incitement to cause harm to the white farmers.

Since Malema chanted the controversial anti-apartheid slogan on Human Rights Day, March 21, there has been a loud chorus of disapproval, especially from the sections of the white community. The brewing brouhaha has caused me to reflect on South Africa's continuous pretense to racial harmony in post-apartheid South Africa.

It is all well that despite the glaring race-based inequities, South Africa continues to soldier on in commendable efforts for an all-inclusive yet elusive Uhuru. What Steve Biko described during the SASO/BPC Trial as a "place for all of us at the rendezvous of victory".

Politically, the 1994 dawn of the country's first democratic elections ushered in a new, hopeful period of optimism for equality before the law.