KILL THE BOER' IS NOT A CALL FOR MURDER

If you watched the cringe meeting between US President Donald Trump and his South African counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa (@CyrilRamaphosa on X), we might have to forgive you for thinking that Pan-Africanist politician Julius Malema (@julius_s_malema on X, @julius.malema.sello on IG) is calling for g*nocide against white settlers in South Africa by singing the anti-apartheid song, ‘K*ll the Boer.’

Settlers of Dutch origin are also known as Boers.

During the 21 May meeting, Trump displayed videos of Malema at political events, claiming they were evidence of the opposition politician's alleged g*nocidal campaign. The US president went so far as to ask why Ramaphosa's government had not arrested Malema.

Trump's unfounded claims bypass the song’s context. It emerged with Black South Africans singing it on the streets in the 1980s and early 1990s in response to the apartheid regime’s violence unleashed against the Black majority.

The EFF leader has repeatedly said that his singing the song is neither hate speech nor inciting violence against white settlers but is merely a reminder to South Africans that the struggle against the economic and social exclusion of Black people is not yet over. Indeed, white settlers comprise only 7 per cent of the population but control most of the economy and own 72 per cent of private farmland.

A 2022 South African Equality Court judgement ruled that the tune was simply a struggle song.

Further, a court recently dismissed the ‘white g*nocide’ claim in a separate case, calling it ‘not real’ and ‘clearly imagined.’

Of the murders that took place in South Africa between April 2024 and December 2024, only 0.035 per cent involved farmers, whose race the government had not distinguished in culling the information.

Video credits: @CNBC, @SABCnews and Judiciary of South Africa (@OCJ_RSA)