Songs and words can incite genocide, judge rules

by Charlene Smith

In an important ruling yesterday, a South African judge ruled that a ruling party leader’s song about killing white farmers could lead to genocide.

In a clear reference to the Rwandan genocide of April,1994 when close to a million people were killed in a horrific six week slaughter, Judge Collin Lamont of the Equality Court said:
"The words of one person inciting others...that's how a genocide can start." He was giving judgment in a hate speech case against embattled, but popular, African National Congress Youth League president, Julius Malema.

The 31-year-old leader has a controversial history and today begins a week-long disciplinary hearing into bringing his organization into disrepute for slandering the leaders of neighboring country, Botswana. Malema lost a previous trial where he was accused of slandering women who were raped. No cases against him have yet tarnished his reputation among young, mostly unemployed followers in this nation of around 40 percent unemployment.

The song Lamont ruled on, "shoot the boer [farmer]" was, in the judges view, derogatory and hurtful.

He pointed out that genocide was defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction" of an ethnic, religious, or national group.

Lamont likened the songs by Malema as those sung by soldiers when they were at war.

"Soldiers in battle don't treat the enemy as individuals but as a thing [a unit]."

Lamont said the difference was that soldiers were singing to celebrate, he noted that when Malema sang he would simulate holding a weapon “and certain gestures were made."

An armed person was one in power and one who intimidated, the court found.



Genocide began in Rwanda, the International Court on War Crimes has found after Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), a Rwandan radio station. It broadcast from July 8, 1993 to July 31, 1994 and mixed pop and humor and frequently referred to Tutsis (most of those killed in the genocide) as “cockroaches.” It’s target audience was young HutuRwandans, who later made up the bulk of the militia who launched the killings.

The Johannesburg judge said that South Africa’s constitution provided for equality, and the eradication of social and economic inequalities, he noted that reconciliation and national unity were meant to heal the divisions of the past.

The ANC in its response said the judgment was an attempt to re-write the country’s history, while AfriForum, who brought the case, said they were still open to discussing the Dubula iBhunu (shoot the boer) songs with Malema.

Speaking in Alexandra, a suburb near Johannesburg, at the weekend - during the youth league's 67th birthday celebrations, Malema declared an ‘economic war’ against South Africa’s white minority. The youth leader who has become exceptionally wealthy, has called for nationalizing the countries wealthy mines.

Former South African president Frederik W. de Klerk who started the process toward democracy by unbanning black political organisations and freeing Nelson Mandela, criticised President Jacob Zuma for failing to rebuke ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema.

"It is unacceptable to sing songs that ask that somebody gets shot," De Klerk said."The historical context is irrelevant. It will be equally unacceptable if Afrikaners started singing songs from the Anglo Boer war that ask that English people be shot." The Anglo Boer war saw the world’s first concentration camps created by the British in which more than 30,000 Boer (Afrikaans) women and children died.

De Klerk said "It is even more unacceptable for Zuma to sit smilingly on the same stage while Malema, an important ANC official, makes such racist comments. Malema's conduct is irreconcilable with the Constitution, which Zuma promised in an oath to protect." Indeed on Tuesday Zuma extended an olive branch to Malema saying he was a "very good" young man and a good communicator.

Losing the Youth League's backing could hurt Zuma's effort to seek a second term as president in 2013.