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The South African
27-05-2025
- Politics
- The South African
Piers Morgan slams 'Kill The Boer': 'It's an incitement to kill!'
Piers Morgan has slammed President Cyril Ramaphosa's comments that Kill The Boer should not be taken literally. The UK personality criticised the South African leader after he defended Economic Freedom Fighter (EFF) leader Julius Malema for singing the controversial song. Just days after coming under fire by US President Donald Trump in the White House, President Ramaphosa has faced more scathing comments for defending the struggle song Kill The Boer and Julius Malema. Speaking to the media from Cape Town, Ramaphosa reacted to Trump's call for Malema to be arrested for performing the controversial song. He said: 'We are a very proud sovereign country that has its own laws and own processes. 'We take into account what the Constitutional Court has decided when it said that Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer is a liberation chant and slogan. It's not meant to be a message to call upon anyone to be killed….we follow the dictates of our constitution.' We are a country where freedom of expression is the bedrock of our constitution. Piers Morgan was one of many who criticised Ramaphosa over his comments, posting on X: 'Oh come off it, Mr President . It's literally a threat, and incitement, to kill'. Meanwhile, former South African president Thabo Mbeki has defended the singing of Kill The Boer, emphasising that it is not to be taken literally. He told SABC News this week: 'It was a chant during the days of struggle. Chants of that kind are part of our tradition, in the African tradition, and you don't take them literally.' He continued: 'There's no uMkhonto we Sizwe soldier who went and killed a farmer. It's a chant to motivate people. It was never taken literally. Even during the course of the struggle, it was not literal. It's an exaggeration to take this as an instruction to go and kill. 'The people who are exaggerating know that they are exaggerating because they are trying to achieve some political purpose.' Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1 . Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp , Facebook , X, and Bluesky for the latest news.
IOL News
26-05-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
'Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer': Igwijo is a Soundtrack of Resistance, Not a Declaration of War
Then Deputy President Thabo Mbeki (R) hands over the African National Congress (ANC) submission to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), in Cape Town May 12, 1997. Appearing before the TRC, Mbeki responded with characteristic intellectual clarity and cultural precision when asked to account for Peter Mokaba's singing of 'Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer', says the writer. Zamikhaya Maseti The initial diplomatic choreography that unfolded in Oval Office meeting between President Cyril Ramaphosa and President Donald J. Trump are characteristics of most bilateral meetings. But just when the South African delegation was easing into the rhythm of State Diplomacy, the unexpected happened: President Trump's ghost of a liberation song "Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer" was abruptly summoned into the room, weaponised with precision and intent. This was no accidental provocation. It was a calculated ambush. President Ramaphosa, a man known for his composed demeanour and political agility, was visibly rattled. The spectacle was painful to witness, he appeared caught in a suffocating grip, struggling for breath and composure. His attempt to rationalize the historical and revolutionary context of the chant came across as faltering, ill-prepared, and agonisingly defensive. At that moment, it was not only the President that was outflanked, it was the entire South African statecraft machinery that stood exposed, vulnerable, and intellectually disarmed. Let us not mince words: this Oval Office experience revealed two fundamental structural deficiencies in the South African state. First, and most glaring, is the strategic and operational weakness of our foreign intelligence architecture. It is self-evident that President Ramaphosa was not thoroughly briefed on the psychological terrain he was entering. A basic PESTEL analysis (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal) should have informed a scenario-based briefing, enabling the President to anticipate Trump's ideological landmines. That this was not done is either a betrayal of competence or an indictment on the calibre of our diplomatic corps and foreign intelligence operatives. The silence of our foreign mission in Washington, and their failure to pick up the murmurs from Elon Musk's media operatives and Trump's inner propaganda circle, speaks to a broader decay of state capacity in the field of geopolitical reconnaissance. And yes, we must name Elon Musk here, not as an incidental observer, but as a central strategist in this narrative. The tech mogul, whose complicated relationship with South Africa is marinated in grievance and nostalgia, appears to have played the role of provocateur-in-chief. The material used in that Oval Office confrontation was curated with deliberate malice and nationalist framing. This could have been predicted and mitigated if only we had eyes on the ground and minds in the sky. Second, and perhaps more disturbing, is the intellectual erosion within the ranks of the African National Congress (ANC), particularly those serving in the Executive. As President Ramaphosa floundered in his attempt to contextualise a chant that emerged from the bowels of the People's War, no member of his delegation rose in ideological defence. None could summon the analytical courage to explain that the South African liberation project was founded on four interrelated and indispensable pillars: Mass Mobilisation, Armed Struggle, Underground Work, and International Solidarity. It is within this matrix that the revolutionary chants found their meaning, not as calls to racial violence, but as expressions of collective defiance against a system of dehumanisation and land dispossession. No one could articulate this, not even as a diplomatic counter-narrative a sobering indication of how far the ANC has drifted from its historical and ideological moorings. The Party of Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, and Chris Hani appears to be losing the capacity to defend its historical lexicon. The younger cadres, both in Parliament and Cabinet, are unfamiliar with the very discourse that once galvanised a nation under siege. Their silence, when it mattered most, is not merely tactical; it is symptomatic of historical amnesia and ideological dereliction. President Ramaphosa tried, valiantly, to explain that the views and performances of fringe political actors. Authoritarian populists and sloganeering demagogues do not reflect official state policy. But in the absence of a coherent ideological defence and a strategic diplomatic posture, the explanation rang hollow. It lacked the intellectual depth and historical weight required in such a moment. The lesson is brutal but necessary: in the age of hyper-politicised diplomacy and weaponised memory, no leader should enter the global arena unarmed with ideology. The struggle continues not only on the streets of our townships but in the minds of our leaders and the intelligence capacity of our diplomats. As the exchange unfolded, I could not help but think back, nearly three decades ago, to a moment when this same question confronted another titan of the African National Congress (ANC): Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki, then Deputy President of the ANC and the Republic of South Africa. Appearing before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Mbeki responded with characteristic intellectual clarity and cultural precision when asked to account for Peter Mokaba's singing of the very same chant. He said: 'We need to talk about African tradition. There is no such was not a statement. It's not a statement of any kind and wouldn't be read by any of these African youth as a statement. In Xhosa, this particular form of art is called igwijo, and igwijo is not a statement. It's not a political statement, it's a chant. You use it... Dumisa... for instance, amakhwenkwe when they are going over long distances, they would be doing this thing... It's not a statement. You see, part of the problem with this is that somebody who comes from outside of that African culture interpreted it... and indeed when you then write there Peter Mokaba said: 'Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer,' he didn't in the sense of a statement which represents policy, and it would not have been taken as a statement that represents policy. So, there is no ANC policy which says, 'Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer' and all that, but there would be amagwijo of all sorts. You have a Zulu song, not quite bigwigs, but it's a traditional song: 'Ngeke ngiye mina kwa Zulu kwafel' uMa Wam.' It's not a statement. It is not a statement I am making that I will never visit Zululand. It's a song. There are different chants, and they would be saying different things about the struggle, and you could translate them. This particular one was picked out, as I say, and interpreted from outside of this African culture and presented as a political statement. It never was...' This is what intellectual preparation looks like. If only someone in President Ramaphosa's delegation had possessed even a modicum of the ideological dexterity and cultural literacy with which Mbeki dismantled the TRC's line of questioning, the outcome in that Oval Office might have been different. Trump would have received not just a briefing, but a primer on the South African revolution, its poetic traditions, and its lexicon of resistance. Instead, the silence of the delegation was deafening. What the world witnessed was not simply a diplomatic slip but the collapse of ideological continuity between generations of ANC leadership. That no one in Ramaphosa's Cabinet could rise to the occasion and defend the revolutionary heritage of chants, bigwigs, and struggle songs as non-policy artefacts of mass mobilisation is an indictment on the intellectual and historical anaemia in the upper echelons of the State. These chants were never Parliamentary resolutions; they were never policy manifestos. They were the soundtrack of resistance, rising from the mines, the townships, the bush camps of uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), and the marches of our Mothers. More crucially, the Oval Office debacle exposed the strategic infirmity of South Africa's foreign intelligence apparatus. That President Ramaphosa walked into that lion's den without the benefit of a thorough pre-briefing, one grounded in scenario planning, geopolitical intelligence, and digital surveillance, is a lapse of statecraft. The PESTEL lens should have been employed. A simple foresight exercise, coupled with on-the-ground reconnaissance in Washington and Silicon Valley, would have revealed that the chant had been resurfacing in conservative echo chambers and Musk's algorithmic battlefield for weeks. That Elon Musk had weaponised it, and that Trump would deploy it, was predictable, was inevitable. We must speak frankly: the South African state is haemorrhaging strategic Intelligence capacity, and our foreign missions are asleep at the wheel. That is the first failure. The second, as I have laboured to demonstrate, is the ideological dislocation between ANC cadres and their revolutionary tradition. We cannot afford a generation of leaders who are afraid to speak the truth of their history, or worse, who have forgotten it. The road ahead is perilous. In a world where memory is manipulated and history is a battlefield, we must return to our roots not to retreat, but to defend and reinterpret them with intellectual rigour. The ANC must rebuild its ideological schoolhouses. Our diplomats must be trained not only in protocol but in the politics of meaning. And our President must never again enter imperial rooms unarmed with the poetry of our liberation. Let it be known: igwijo is not a declaration of war, it is a chant of remembrance. But if we do not explain it, others will define it. And in doing so, they will define us. Let this be a wake-up call. Our revolution is being misrepresented, and we are being outsmarted not because the enemy is smarter, but because we have forgotten who we are and where we come from. * Zamikhaya Maseti is a Political Economy Analyst with a Magister Philosophiae (M. PHIL) in South African Politics and Political Economy from the University of Port Elizabeth (UPE), now known as the Nelson Mandela University (NMU). ** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.
The Citizen
25-05-2025
- Politics
- The Citizen
WATCH: Malema not ‘intimidated' by Trump's call for his arrest
Malema said he would never stop singing a song that Winnie Mandela sang and it would be a betrayal to the struggle of 'our people'. EFF leader Julius Malema addressing community members of Ward 16 in Koppies ahead of their bi-elections which will take place on the 28th of May 2025. Picture: X/@EFFSouthAfrica EFF leader Julius Malema said he doesn't fear for his life after US president Donald Trump called his arrest. Malema was addressing EFF supporters during a rally Ward 16, Koppies in the Free State on Africa Day on Sunday. The EFF leader engaged with community members ahead of by elections in the area which is expected commence on the 28th of May. 'Kill Malema' Malema said he would never be intimidated by Trump. 'Well, I'm not fearful. As a revolutionary, part of being killed is one of those honours you must wear with pride, but I'm not going to be reckless. When he says to Ramaphosa, why is this man not in jail, why are you not arresting this man? He simply means, why are you not killing this man, because this man wants to kill white people. That's what he believes. 'Imperialism, especially the USA, it makes such remarks meaning something different,' Malema said. WATCH Malema speaking about Donald Trump calling for his arrest ♦️Must Watch♦️ The EFF President and Commander in Chief @Julius_S_Malema engaging with member of the media at Ward 16, Koppies in Free State. The President strongly criticised President Ramaphosa and his delegation for their failure to defend the Constitution—particularly the… — Economic Freedom Fighters (@EFFSouthAfrica) May 25, 2025 ALSO READ: 'There is doubt in Trump's head about genocide in SA,' Ramaphosa says [VIDEO] Malema said he would never be intimidated by America. 'I will never be intimidated by Donald Trump, Malema said. That nonsense that Trump did in America, he will never do that nonsense in my presence because I will confront him here and there, with the facts'! Ramaphosa ambush During the bilateral talks between Trump and President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday, which played out before the media, the US president showed videos of Malema chanting 'Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer' to support his false belief in genocide against whites in the country, asking why the red berets leader has not been arrested. Trump, proved to be a political rottweiler for Afrikaners and white farmers shifting the focus from what began as a cordial discussion with Ramaphosa but veered sharply off course to farm attacks in South Africa. ALSO READ: WATCH: Donald Trump ambushes Cyril Ramaphosa in Oval Office 'Kill the Boer' Malema said Ramaphosa could not present the facts in front Trump. 'I will never stop singing a song that Winnie Mandela sang. That would be a betrayal to the struggle of our people'. Malema criticised Ramaphosa and his delegation for their failure to defend The constitution of South Africa, particularly the right to freedom of speech in the context of the 'Kill the Boer'. On Saturday, after delivering the eulogy at the funeral of ANC Women's League deputy president Lungi Mnganga-Gcabashe, Ramaphosa said the issues raised by Trump at the Oval Office in Washington would be addressed in due course. ALSO READ: Malatsi summoned to Parliament to explain Starlink policy directive 'EFF will never unite with Zuma' Earlier, Malema vowed the red berets with never unite with former president Jacob Zuma's MK party also elaborating that he doesn't fear for his life after US president Donald Trump called his arrest. Malema said the EFF will 'never unite with Zuma who wants to kill the EFF'. 'We'll never unite with MK that exist to destroy the EFF. We are not friends with the enemies of the EFF whether Trump says the same thing about the two of us, we don't care. We must never be tempted to unite with the agents who want to destroy the EFF'. 'If Zuma wants the unity of black people, why did he form MK when there was EFF, because you are already dividing people. You must join the existing organisation that pursues the same agenda which is the EFF. There is no unity they are talking about, they are pretentious about it. Zuma is about himself and about his family, that's why he went to form that spaza shop', Malema said. 'Double agents' In November last year, Malema claimed the red berets had been infiltrated by double agents, with former founding members being turned and captured ahead of the national elective conference in December. The EFF leader's embattled party has been hit with a leadership exodus, with big names, including Floyd Shivambu, Mzwanele Manyi, Busisiwe Mkhwebane and Dali Mpofu, crossing over to former president Zuma's MK party.
The Citizen
23-05-2025
- Politics
- The Citizen
Trump meeting a wake-up call for South Africa
Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen says South Africa clearly has a crime problem that is now probably on the radar of the world. South African Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen speaks during a meeting with US President Donald Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 21, 2025. Picture: Jim Watson / AFP The SA delegation to the White House emerged 'in better shape than we went in', says Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen, with all hopeful the relationship between Pretoria and Washington can be reset, after 'giving the Trump White House some food for thought.' Experts called the meeting a diplomatic draw, but said US President Donald Trump was noncommittal about whether he is willing to come to South Africa this year for the G20 summit, where the US will take over from SA as head. His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said this week Trump and the US would not be part of the meeting. It was 'instructive when Trump was asked, 'Is your mind made up about the genocide?' He said, 'No, it's not.' I think we've given them some room to think,' said Steenhuisen. 'Kill the Boer' videos and surprise printouts It was 'never going to be an easy meeting', he said, adding that 'obviously the big surprise was the videos shown in the Oval Office'. The videos were of Julius Malema leading EFF supporters singing Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer, as well as Jacob Zuma singing similar apparently anti-white songs from the struggle years. Trump also produced a sheaf of article print-outs which, he claimed, were evidence of the South African 'genocide'. Steenhuisen said despite the surprise, 'that gave us an opportunity to distinguish the new partners from the protagonists in the video, which were Malema and Zuma. ALSO READ: Ramaphosa says Trump meeting a success despite ambush [VIDEO] 'We're in government to keep them out' 'And that's what gave me the great pivot to be able to say: 'Look. we are in government to keep those people out of government'.' Away from the glare of the TV cameras and microphones 'Trump was really warm and generous', Steenhuisen said. In the private exchanges, Steenhuisen, along with golf stars Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, got to talk about SA's problems. 'I think the golfers did a lot of work to defend things, particularly over the lunch, where Trump was very clearly relaxed,' said Steenhuisen. 'I enjoyed the banter about golf. He is clearly very engrossed with golf.' Farm murders, crime and political optics However, 'the meeting was a wake-up call for us', he said. 'We've clearly got a crime problem that probably is on the radar of the world now. It certainly is on America's radar and we've now got to deal with it. 'The white House visit has given us and opportunity to really start to make some strides on farm attacks and farm murders. It was important to say that we're not going to sugarcoat this. We have a problem.' Former DA leader and ambassador Tony Leon said the White House meeting was 'theatrical, bordering on the absurd' and, in the end, 'there was no true victory, yet, for either side'. 'While the SA delegation set out to dispel some of the falsehoods, the truth is that the high level of crime in South Africa is not reassuring,' Leon said. ALSO READ: Here is the origin of the white cross video Trump used to ambush Ramaphosa Competing agendas and geopolitical fallout Trump 'was not really interested in much else at the time other than coming across as the saviour of white people the world over', he added. Political analyst Ntsikelelo Breakfast believes the tension between the US and South Africa will be mended soon. 'The fact that Trump agreed to listen to South Africa's side of the story shows he cares about relations between the two countries. 'There is no South African president who wishes to be held accountable for failing to save the country's relationship with the US because it is vital. We simply cannot afford to jeopardise our relationship with that country,' said Breakfast. Political analyst André Duvenhage said Ramaphosa and his team's visit to the US was a historical moment: it was the first time since 1994 that, in public, an international superpower has taken the side of white people because of farm murders and racial discrimination. 'That must be a turnaround in some way and talking about what happened in the open session, it was clear that the two parties worked with different agendas. I think the Trump agenda was to put certain blame on the ANC,' said Duvenhage. 'I believe it has a lot to do with the Jewish connection and the fact that South Africa initiated the court case against Israel. 'From the side of South Africa, it was more aligned with getting trade opportunities, getting investment from the United States and clarifying their positions.' NOW READ: Will Trump go after Malema and Zuma? IRR says 'Kill the Boer' chant created problems for SA
Epoch Times
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Epoch Times
Who Is the South African Radical in the Oval Office Video Singing ‘Kill the Farmer'?
JOHANNESBURG—Julius Malema doesn't need to put much effort into stirring controversy. He leads a party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), whose policies include seizing all forms of 'white-owned wealth,' including mines, land, and banks, for 'redistribution to poor black people.' Malema has threatened that white South Africans could be slaughtered in a 'revolution' by poor black citizens taking revenge for decades of white minority rule under apartheid, an official policy that ended in 1994. On Wednesday, Malema's image and words stirred trouble again as they were beamed into the lives of millions around the world from the Oval Office, as U.S. President Donald Trump hosted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. During the meeting, when Ramaphosa tried to counter Trump's claim that there's a 'genocide of white farmers' in South Africa, the U.S. leader told aides to dim the lights and roll the tape. Some of the South African delegation shifted uncomfortably in their seats as Malema appeared onscreen bellowing the words, 'Kill the Farmer,' the title of a song he often sings along with thousands of supporters at anti-government political rallies. Related Stories 5/21/2025 5/21/2025 'Shoot to kill!' Malema yelled. Another scene showed rows of white crosses at a memorial to slain white farmers in South Africa, where, currently, more than 70 people are murdered daily. The roots of Malema's song lie in 1980s South Africa, when black protestors chanted the Zulu words 'Dubula ibhunu,' or 'Kill the Boer,' to represent resistance to the nationalist Afrikaner government that was oppressing them. Malema has been tried twice in a court of law for assaulting white people, but was acquitted on both occasions. Malema told The Epoch Times he 'proudly started causing trouble' when he was a toddler, when he says he threw his first stone at a police vehicle in Seshego, his home township in the country's north, in the late 1980s. 'Later, I graduated to petrol bombs,' he said. He has been found guilty of hate speech on several occasions for inciting violence against whites, with each conviction overturned on appeal. In 2020, after a white man allegedly assaulted a black man near a school in Cape Town, Malema instructed supporters at the scene to track down and 'attend to' the white man, according to the FW de Klerk Foundation. He told them, 'Never be scared to kill,' as 'a revolution demands that at some point there must be killing, because the killing is part of a revolutionary act.' EFF members, clad in their customary red overalls and berets to represent their communist ethos, displayed placards that read 'Honeymoon is over for white people in South Africa' and 'A revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate.' On another occasion, Malema said he's 'not calling for the slaughtering of whites, at least for now.' When questioned about why he won't stop singing his infamous song, Malema responded that it's a symbol of his 'opposition to the [African National Congress's (ANC's)] capitalism' and his 'opposition to the white people that still control the South African economy.' Malema said his 'ultimate hero' is Zimbabwe's former President Robert Mugabe, who in the early 2000s sent his 'war veterans' to confiscate white-owned farms, with scores of white farmers murdered. Ramaphosa's spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, told The Epoch Times that the South African government had 'no intention' of driving white farmers from their land. 'Zimbabwe, which is just across the border, has shown us that if we have no white farmers here, it would be suicide. Many of the white farmers are our biggest food producers,' he said. 'They must be protected, and the government is dedicated to improving their security and the safety and security of all South Africans, regardless of race.' The ANC, which received 40 percent of the votes in an election last year, shares power with the Democratic Alliance (DA), which got just over 20 percent. After Trump's assistants played the footage of Malema singing his 'Kill the Boer [Farmer]' song, Ramaphosa and his entourage told Trump that the EFF is a small party and its views don't represent government policy. But professor Adam Habib, director of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, who's studied the EFF since it was formed in 2013, told The Epoch Times it has a 'powerful voice' in South Africa. 'EFF support is much smaller than the ANC and the DA, but they pull a consistent 10 percent of the vote come election time,' he said. 'The EFF has been popular since its inception and its members are always elected to parliament.' Malema established the EFF after he was kicked out of the ANC in 2012 for bringing the party into disrepute. He had branded then-President Jacob Zuma a 'dictator.' 'Malema knows a thing or two about dictators because all his heroes, like Robert Mugabe and [former Libyan military ruler] Muammar Gaddafi, were dictators,' said Habib. 'The EFF is a racist, violent cancer in South Africa and the sooner we see the back of them, the better.'
