Three political parties on Sunday expressed concern and outrage about the use of the slogan ”Kill the Boer, kill the farmer” at the funeral of the African National Congress (ANC) MP Peter Mokaba.
The Afrikaner Eenheidsbeweging (AEB) on Sunday night added its voice to the Democratic Alliance and the Freedom Front, objecting to the use of the slogan and condemning it as hate speech.
AEB leader Cassie Aucamp said his party had no other option but to refer the use of the slogan to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC).
He said the slogan, which was made popular by Mokaba, had previously been referred to the commission for a decision on whether it was hate speech or not. At the time the commission found that it was not hate speech if seen against the political background of that era.
Aucamp said the commission would have to answer the question if the slogan, seen in the current political context, was still not hate speech.
”The current context is one of reconciliation on the one hand, but the unacceptably high incidence of murders of farmers on the other hand can be seen as a scenario in which the slogan could be interpreted as inciting crime and violence.”
Aucamp said what worried him even more was the fact that President Thabo Mbeki was present at the funeral where the slogan was chanted and, according to reports, did nothing to stop it.
He said the AEB would also raise the subject in parliament during Mbeki’s budget vote this week.
Earlier the Freedom Front (FF) also vowed to a lay a complaint with the South African Human Rights Commission against the ANC.
FF leader Pieter Mulder said in a statement if his party received no joy from the commission, then it would consider other legal options.
Mulder accused the ANC’s leadership of double standards when it came to condemning racism.
He said while the crowd attending Mokaba’s funeral on Saturday in Pietersburg chanted the slogan ”Kill the farmer, kill the boer”, a KwaZulu-Natal farmer and his wife, Robin and Allison Dent, were murdered.
Mulder said it was the responsibility of political leaders to educate their followers and to discipline them if their conduct promoted hate speech and racism.
He said no funeral of a farmer had even been politicised.
”What will be the reaction of ANC leaders if farmers start chanting ‘Kill the Xhosas, Kill the Black man’ during the funerals of the Dent couple?” he asked.
If the SAHRC failed to condemn the slogan as hate speech, the Freedom Front would follow a legal path to get clarity on the issue.
Mulder said the Constitution was clear on its definition of hate speech. Clarity on what constituted hate speech was needed in view of the song by Mbongeni Ngema urging ”valiant, strong, black men” to stand up to Indians, as well as Saturday’s repetition of the ”Kill the farmer, kill the boer” slogan.
”It does not help that leaders talk about reconciliation, but do the opposite.
In his reaction, DA leader Tony Leon sharply criticised the government’s failure to react.
”Allowing hateful slogans like ‘kill the boer, kill the farmer’ to be chanted… in full view of the ANC leadership and most of the Cabinet –who did not utter a word of condemnation or make a single move to stop it — was a terrible indictment of the double-speak of the ANC and the government.
”Peter Mokaba had great talents and promise but because he was seen as an icon we must be honest… his slogan of ‘kill the boer, kill the farmer’ was hateful…his denial of Aids, the most terrible plague this nation has ever known, was shameful,” he said.
Farmers were being murdered at a terrible rate — last year alone more than 900 farms were attacked and 140 farmers murdered — and the government had done nothing to stop it.
”And it is disgraceful that on the very same day that ANC supporters were allowed to chant ‘kill the boer, kill the farmer’ so enthusiastically, Robin and Allison Dent — farmers from New Hanover, Kwa-Zulu Natal –were brutally murdered and their thirteen-year-old son abducted,” he said. – Sapa