By Ed Cropley
JOHANNESBURG Oct 31 (Reuters) – South Africa’s ruling
African National Congress (ANC) pledged on Wednesday to stop its
supporters singing the “Shoot the Boer” anti-apartheid anthem to
avoid upsetting white farmers and stirring racial tension.
The agreement between the ANC and white-minority interest
group Afriforum ends a two-year legal battle over the song that
had ignited a debate about freedom of speech, censorship of
history and efforts to mend the racist rifts in South African
society.
The liberation-era song calls on the oppressed black
majority to gun down the boers, or white Afrikaner farmers who
were among apartheid’s staunchest supporters.
A Johannesburg High Court ruled last year that it was “hate
speech” after then-ANC youth leader Julius Malema – who has
since been expelled from the party for ill-discipline – sang it
at several public meetings.
An ANC appeal against that ruling was due to start in the
Supreme Court on Thursday. The two sides instead agreed to sit
down and reach a deal rather than ask the courts to decide on a
topic as thorny as “banning” a song known to nearly every adult
black South African.
“The ANC commits itself not to sing this song,”
Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe told a news conference, flanked
by Afriforum lawyers and leaders of the Transvaal Agricultural
Union, a white farmers’ group.
He also made clear the agreement covered other potentially
hurtful songs, saying party leaders would “encourage its members
to have some restraint and avoid singing lyrics that will hurt
feelings”.
The deal is a rare compromise between the ANC and the white
Afrikaans-speaking minority, which has sometimes struggled to
feel at home in Nelson Mandela’s post-apartheid “Rainbow
Nation”.
Continued…
