COSATU Rejects Afri Forum's claim to the Human Rights Commission

October 15 2014

COSATU believes that freedom of speech and expression is a cornerstone of our democracy and as such we reject the attempts by Afri Forum to ban the song from Dookom. The same Afri Forum cheered when the old anthem was sung at a boere event. Afri Forum has distinguished itself as defending the apartheid generational advantages with the De Klerk foundation and should not be taken seriously in the new South Africa.

The song warns the entire nation that a crisis is looming on the farms and we would do well to heed the warning. We must use this chance to speed up land reform and to give the workers their fair slice of the land as advocated by the Minister of Land Affairs. The farmers must remember that they were part of the great land theft in 1913 when the black indigenous people were dispossessed. They may even have bought land after that from other white farmers and should have known that, looking at 1913, this was stolen land that they bought.

Let's stop splitting hairs about words and songs about racist farmers, let's get on with land reform that restores justice to this land of Afrika.

Statement issued by Tony Ehrenreich, COSATU Western Cape provincial secretary, October 15 2014

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