Is there a place for the singing of violent protest songs of years gone by?
South Africa is haunted by a very violent past. But even more towering than our violent past, is our violent present and unstable future. South Africa remains a very violent country. This is something we cannot deny, however much we would like to believe the contrary, South Africa is violent. There are tens of thousands of murders each year taking place here, and many more assaults and sexual crime.
We cannot deny the existence of the past. It is part of our heritage and what makes us South African. On this basis, those who want to sing these songs make a good point. There is possibly violent music in each and every culture. Take for example the French anthem.
However the problem in South Africa goes much further.
Ever since 1994, when the new government took control of South Africa, the amount of people employed on farms has drastically declined. Thousands upon thousands of people has lost their jobs of being unskilled labourers on farms. Meanwhile the government has started to redistribute the land to ‘developing’ farmers. These farmers do not employ workers. They work the land themselves.
Now agriculture in South Africa is not what it used to be. It is hard. If you are a white farmer, and thus considered a ‘developed’ farmer, you do net get any help from government. In fact, you farm knowing that your farm could be claimed for resettlement.
But apart from this, hundreds of farmers are murdered every year. The government does not view these murders as ‘farm murders’, as the farming community does. The government consider these simply ‘murders’.
But with every farm murder, a great number of people lose their income. This not only applies to the family of the farmer, but also to the workers and their families, who lose their jobs and their income.
Listening to the president, Jacob Zuma during his state of the nation speech and his emphasis on job creation, and also the minister of finance (who, amazingly, made a connection between land redistribution and job creation), one fails to see any mention of how the government is going to protect the jobs in the agricultural sector. Furthermore, nothing is said about how the government will protect South Africa’s most important asset – our commercial farmers.
Now the ANC has come out in support of Julius Malema’s singing of the song ‘Kill the farmer’. And with every farmer that is killed in South Africa, the whole country slips further and further down the slope of joblessness and despair.
When there is talk about unhappiness about singing the songs like ‘kill the farmer’ it is not merely a ‘white’ thing. It is a concern that many South Africans has for the future of this country. South Africa cannot afford to lose any more able farmers, be they black or white or whatever. We have already seen what happened in Zimbabwe when Robert Mugabe seized the farms. The whole country went down the drain and it will take many years to restore it.
Is there a place for ‘shoot the farmer’ in South Africa? If there were no murders on farms, maybe. But under the current circumstances, it should not be allowed, and it is a shame that the ANC supports the singing of these kinds of songs.
(566 Words)
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