LISTEN | I did not sing ‘Kill the Boer’, you have the wrong man, Julius Malema tells Equality Court

“I did not sing ‘Kill the Boer’, you have the wrong man.”

So said EFF leader Julius Malema in the Equality Court in Johannesburg on Wednesday during the hate speech case brought by AfriForum.

Listen:

AfriForum took Malema and the EFF to court for singing Dubul’ ibhunu (translated as “Shoot the Boer” or “Kill the Boer”). The lobby group wants Malema, the party and MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi to apologise and pay damages.

Malema said SA remained a “conquered nation as long as land was in the hands of the white minority”.

“Those who came before us used the term ‘Aluta continua’. They appreciated that 1994 was not the end of apartheid, but the beginning of the process to destroy everything apartheid stood for.

“The economic aspect has not been dealt with. Most of our people are still spectators in the economy of our country. They remain marginalised.”

Asked what his party stood for, Malema referred to EFF policy and said the main issue was expropriation of land without compensation.

“The expropriation of land is the main pillar. Land represents the economic struggle we are pursuing. When the colonialists and settlers arrived here they took our land by force. We remain a conquered nation for as long as we have not reclaimed the land and taken it back into the hands of real owners.

“We want prime land in the hands of the people.”

The state should own the land and ownership should not be centralised.

He denied singing the song. “You have the wrong man. Even in the videos they have presented, not a single video shows me singing ‘Kill the Boer’.”

He had no idea where the song originated.

“I was taught the song when I was young. I joined the struggle when I was nine years old. We understood through political education what the song meant. They made us understand it was important not to take the song in its literal meaning.

“The song referred to the system of oppression, anything that symbolised the establishment at the time. When white police drove into the townships we used to run and say ‘here come the Boers’, but it was not Boers, but blacks. That’s how it was referred to.”

The case continues.

TimesLIVE