The “shoot the boer” hate speech complaint against African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) president Julius Malema was transferred to the South Gauteng High Court on Monday. It was postponed to 2011.
The case will be heard in court between the end of April or early May.
The matter was heard in a closed court where no media were allowed inside. It had initially been scheduled to take place at the Equality Court.
The complainant, civil rights movement AfriForum, withdrew its case against the African National Congress (ANC), but was proceeding with taking the ANCYL to court. The league responded by calling AfriForum a “group of racist children who are crazy”.
Its spokesman Floyd Shivambu was reacting to a statement by AfriForum’s lawyer Willie Spies ahead of a hearing set to deal with the hate speech complaint the organisation had laid against the ruling and its league.
“We had fruitful discussions with the ANC. But with youth league leader Julius Malema, there seems to be no attempt or wish from his side to admit that his actions offended some people,” said Spies.
Shivambu told the South African Press Association (Sapa) on Monday morning: “We don’t want to respond to anything [from] AfriForum. It’s just a group of racist children who are crazy.”
The hate speech hearing about the singing of the words “dubul’ ibhunu”, (shoot the boer) in the struggle song, Ayesaba Amagwala, was scheduled for 2pm.
At the last hearing in September, Judge Colin Lamont adjourned the matter to give the parties time to resolve the dispute.
AfriForum laid the complaint after Malema first sang the song at the University of Johannesburg in mid-March. It caused an outcry in some sectors of society. He continued singing it at events in Rustenburg in North West, East London in the Eastern Cape and Polokwane in Limpopo.
“We got the idea that he was quite enjoying the attention,” said Spies.
‘We do not believe in quick-fix court orders’
In April, days before right wing leader Eugene Terre’Blanche was murdered in an apparent wage dispute with two farm workers, AfriForum secured an interdict against the singing of the song in the North Gauteng High Court.
After the murder, President Jacob Zuma made a public plea for calm which Spies said also showed the ruling party realised the sensitivities around racial tensions.
The high court interdict came on the heels of a court ruling in March in the South Gauteng High Court, when Judge Leon Halgryn ruled the singing and publication of the song was unconstitutional and unlawful.
The Halgryn ruling was made after an application by Delmas businessman Willem Harmse, who argued the song promoted farm killings.
Fellow Mpumalanga businessman Mohammed Vawda opposed the application, but did not request leave to appeal against Halgryn’s ruling. The ANC has, however, filed an application for leave to appeal against Halgryn’s ruling.
Spies said AfriForum understood in principle why the ANC wanted to appeal against that ruling, because it seemed the application was made by two friends.
“We do not believe in quick-fix court orders,” said Spies.
Earlier this year ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu sang it to a Sapa reporter over the phone to explain its context while he was detained by police for drunk driving.
The “shoot the boer” phrase was popularised by former ANCYL president Peter Mokaba at a memorial rally for slain anti-apartheid activist and SA Communist Party leader Chris Hani in Cape Town in 1993, months before South Africa held its first democratic elections in 1994. — Sapa