South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), the highest appellate court in the country other than the Constitutional Court, dismissed an appeal this week against a decision that “Kill the Boer” was not hate speech.
The phrase “Kill the Boer” is part of a song frequently used by radical racial nationalist Julius Malema, the head of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) political party. “Boer” is the Afrikaans word for “farmer” and can refer to Afrikaners more generally — i.e. to white South Africans of Dutch descent.
The phrase is considered sensitive due to the high number of farm murders in South Africa, which many white South Africans believe are racially motivated.
In a statement, AfriForum, an organization that advocates for the civil rights of Afrikaners, said it would consider appealing the ruling to the Constitutional Court:
AfriForum lodged the original complaint against the EFF and Malema in 2020 after EFF supporters chanted “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer” outside the Magistrate’s Court in Senekal where the accused murderers of farm manager Brendin Horner were being tried. Recent evidence of just how dangerous this hateful chant can be came in 2023 when a couple from Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal were severely assaulted on their farm while their attackers shouted, “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer”.
According to Kallie Kriel, CEO of AfriForum, farmers and Afrikaners deserve the same protections against hate speech as any other profession or cultural group. If the courts are not going to protect these groups from hate speech, they will have to take their safety into their own hands.
“AfriForum has already established more than 172 neighbourhood and farm watches nationwide. In light of this judgment, AfriForum will intensify its focus on investing a large and growing amount of its resources and time into improving and expanding our community safety networks through means such as training and equipment,” Kriel concludes.
The SCA ruling came just before South Africans went to the polls in national elections on Wednesday. Early results suggest a possible strong showing for the EFF.
Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, the lawyer representing Malema, appeared for South Africa before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague earlier this year to argue that Israel is committing “genocide” against Palestinians. His most important argument was based on a misquote of a statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Ironically, Ngcukaitobi is now on record arguing that “destroy Hamas” is genocidal, while “kill the Boer” is not.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
