EFF leader Julius Malema’s trademark song is “Shoot the Boer, Shoot the farmer”, which he sings at political rallies.
Afrikaner lobby groups have tried to get the song banned, saying it was highly inflammatory and amounted to hate speech.
However, South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal has ruled that Malema is within his rights to sing the lyrics – first popularised during the anti-apartheid struggle – at political rallies.
The court ruled that a “reasonably well-informed person” would understand that when “protest songs are sung, even by politicians, the words are not meant to be understood literally, nor is the gesture of shooting to be understood as a call to arms or violence”.
Instead, the song was a “provocative way” of advancing the EFF’s political agenda – which was to end “land and economic injustice”.
Lobby group AfriForum filed an appeal against the ruling, but South Africa’s highest court refused to hear the case, saying it had little chance of succeeding.
In 2023, South Africa’s former President Thabo Mbeki urged Malema to stop singing the song, saying it was no longer politically relevant as the anti-apartheid struggle was over.
The ANC says it no longer sings it, but it cannot “prescribe to other political parties what they must sing”.
Do white people face discrimination in South Africa?
Even though white-minority rule ended in 1994, its effects are still being felt.
Average living standards are far higher for the white community than black people.
White people occupy 62.1% of top management posts, despite only accounting for 7.7% of the country’s economically active population, according to a recent report by South Africa’s Commission for Employment Equity.
The government has tried to change this through what it calls “economic empowerment” and “employment equity” laws.
An amended version of the second act includes strict targets for companies aimed at increasing the number of non-white employees.
While these laws have been welcomed by many South Africans, some members of racial minorities feel they make it harder for them to get jobs and government contracts. There has also been criticism that they can lead to corruption, for example when business opportunities are given to friends and relatives of officials.
Among the critics have been the Democratic Alliance, which despite being part of the governing coalition, recently challenged the amended Employment Equity Act in court, saying it would “make far more people marginalised in our economy than they already are”.
Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie recently came under fire when a job in his department was advertised as being only open to the Coloured, Asian and white populations.
He defended this move, saying he was applying the Employment Equity Act and ensuring “all races are represented”, because most of the people in his department were black.