On Monday the 16th of March, two days after the ANC NEC expressed its support for Julius Malema and his shoot the Boer song, in a strange but interesting paradox, the Equality Court found Julius Malema, President of the ANCYL, guilty of hate speech for his utterances against the woman who once laid a rape charge (which crumbled in court) against our president, comrade Jacob Zuma. This decision comes right on the heels of many other denigrating abusive insults hailed at women by Julius during his visit at the University of Johannesburg, about which our leadership in the ANC NEC said nothing. To my astonishment, up to date the ANC NEC has not said a word about the implications of this decision by the Equality Court and what it should mean to all of us as members of the ANC in the context of our struggle against the oppression of women.
Could this mean our ANC NEC are so entangled in managing factional politics in that they can't even see what is going on outside the now open, now hidden succession debate? Are we content on elevating the over-inflated egos of certain individuals above principle and strategic objectives of our movement? Have we suspended our pursuit of a non-racial and non-sexist society at the alter of policing those who dare raise their views and preferences in the succession debate? What about the vocal silence on the part of the ANCWL? Are they content and succumbing to the insults and terror by certain marauding anarchists of no particular origin? These and other questions should be answered honestly and objectively so that there is renewed focus on what we ought to do as the ANC to advance towards creating a truly non-racial and non-sexist society.
I have tried hard to ponder the objective reason by our ANC NEC (and one Communications Workers Union) to come out loud in support of the song sang by Julius Malema at the University of Johannesburg, chanting the shoot the Boer song. It boggles my mind that the ANC NEC decided not to contexualise the historical significance of our revolutionary songs in the rush to defend Julius. Should we accept the notion that revolutionary songs, such as the one Julius sang, get sung out of nostalgia and a purposeless journey to history?
The Historical Context of Dubul' Ibhulu Song and the Deepening of our National Democratic Revolution
Many of us grew up singing and understanding revolutionary songs as instruments to express those political convictions and objectives we held dear to our hearts. We sang these songs to express our anger, sadness, hope and the need for change; the expressed intention to bring about a particular political outcome. Every revolutionary song was in tandem with the prevailing political conditions of the time. There were numerous ways in which our people kept track of current political events - speeches, newspapers, pamphlets, cartoons and festivals - but only singing was accessible to all.
In our specific struggles under apartheid, we sang songs like dubul' ibhulu as an expression of anger and intent towards the racist system that racially oppressed us while on the other hand whites were singing and using Die Stem as a historical justification for this racial oppression. We also sang this and other songs like it to express our hope and vision of a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, united and prosperous South Africa. Such a vision found resonance with many of our people because the songs we sang were not only relevant to our circumstances, but inspired us to sacrifice even more in order to achieve this ideal society.