‘Kill the Boer’ segregates citizens in a time of social and economic distress

Last week Thursday, almost 30 years to the day, I sat for a meal alongside a man who was a mere 19 years old when his mother was shot and killed in the St James Church Massacre in Kenilworth, Cape Town.

Craig and his father survived but 11 worshippers were blown away by hand grenades and bullets while more than 50 others suffered horrific injuries.

Images of thick, blood-stained carpets and broken bodies were shown last month in media remembrances of this evil deed. The four APLA operatives were arrested, claimed they were carrying out political orders, and received amnesty from the TRC.

It was a cruel irony of the early 1990s that one of the more racially integrated churches in the country would become a racial target of such hateful men whose actions the TRC would describe as “a gross violation of human rights”.

White and black people died that night and the 30th anniversary would bring back painful memories.

That is why I could not bear to ask Craig about his mother’s murder but just be there in the circle of friends surrounding him at the dinner table.

Then the country’s politics was flammable, and our future was uncertain. Chris Hani, the popular ANC politician had just been assassinated by a white man, and the looming first democratic elections were by no means secured. The economy was in a tailspin and race relations were strained.

That was the context in which the intended racial massacre of white people took place except black people like Craig’s mother would be among the dead.

I could not help making the connection between this racial atrocity of 1993 and another dangerous racial provocation in 2023, three decades apart to the month.

Last weekend at the EFF’s 10th anniversary celebrations in a packed FNB Stadium in Soweto, that old troublesome song from the struggle days was rhythmically belted out once again led by the party’s enigmatic leader. Kill the Boer, kill the farmer.

Twitter went apoplectic including its Pretoria-born billionaire boss, Elon Musk, who accused Julius Malema of inciting “white genocide”.

On the same platform Professor Adam Habib, the former Wits vice-chancellor and now director of SOAS (School for Oriental and African Studies), University College London, came out swinging after a long silence on social media: “There is a lot of nonsensical defence of the ‘kill the Boer’ song being part of our liberatory cultural heritage.”

Habib would have none of this arguing instead that “Singing this song today is pure racial baiting. It makes some citizens feel as if they do not belong. [It is] juvenile reactionary politics at its worse & will destroy SA.”

I share Habib’s outrage, but I do think we all need to just calm down.

There will not be any white genocide; that is a hysterical overreaction to an old and troubled song.

In the same vein, drawing parallels to Hitler’s extermination policies or Mussolini’s fascism is just bad social science.

The history, culture, and politics of this country is overwhelmingly one of racial accommodation even in the face of the extreme provocation of apartheid.

From the Freedom Charter of the 1950s to the constitution of the 1990s, SA has time and time again affirmed the place and belonging of white South Africans as citizens (not foreigners or colonials) of the country.

The stress test of that commitment came with the assassination of Chris Hani in 1993 by a Polish-born man whose goal with his accomplices was to instigate racial conflagration; but as Justice Malala details in his beautifully written book, The Plot to Save SA, there was no mass reactionary violence against whites despite the incalculable loss of a beloved and popular black leader.

With threatened court action, the DA does what the DA does whether it is Afrikaans or Dubul' ibhunu.

I accept that there might be genuine indignation, but I also suspect there is a healthy dose of political opportunism; use the outrage against the third largest political party (EFF) to channel anxious white voters towards the second largest one (DA): remember, we are your racial refuge from the second coming of the black peril. No need for subliminal messaging there.

What I do worry about is how this thoughtless and insensitive song hardens racial attitudes among some of our citizens, breeds intergroup suspicion, and further segregates white and black citizens in a time of great social and economic distress.

Whether Kill the Boer is part of our cultural heritage or permissible as free speech is a moot point. Is this what our leaders should be encouraging in their political performances in times like these?

Of course, you do not have to sing your hatreds to divide, provoke and hurt South Africans. Staying silent in the face of such provocations is another way of doing so. Right, Mr. President?