Johannesburg - White South African women will also benefit from the expropriation of land without compensation because they were excluded from participating in the country’s wealth and economy.
These were the views expressed by EFF leader Julius Malema when he took the stand in the Equality Court in a case in which AfriForum is asking the court to criminally prosecute him for allegedly singing “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer”.
AfriForum alleges that the apparent singing of the song at the court appearance of the men who were accused of killing Senekal farmer Brendan Horner in October 2020 had led to the killing of more farmers.
The two have since been acquitted.
But in this court application, AfriForum alleges that the singing of the song has led to a growing number of farm murders. AfriForum called a number of witnesses, including some of victims of farm murders, to support their case in court.
In his defence, Malema was adamant that the expropriation of land without any compensation was aimed at benefiting everyone, including white women, who were allegedly excluded from the economy.
However, he denied that he sang the song in Senekal.
“I did not sing ’Kill the Boer’. They are looking for the wrong person. I do not know where the song started. I was taught the song when I was very young. I joined the struggle when I was nine years old. They thought about struggle songs, marshal drilling and crowd control.
“I learnt from them. We were taught these songs. They should not take the song literally. The elders taught us that a soldier with a gun and without political education is a potential criminal,” Malema said.
He said the song, at the time, was referring to an abhorrent political system of oppression, saying anything that symbolised the system was referred to as amaBhunu.
“A boer will mean a farmer. Farmers are the face of land dispossession. It’s the struggle of the land. It was for those reasons that farmer and boer would be used interchangeably.