I Chose Me Again and Again Snog
Simply this may likewise be a case of how the extremes in our politics rely on each other, that what strengthens ane side may strengthen the other side. Thus, while this example may strengthen Malema, it may likewise strengthen AfriForum, as they both attempt to assist our nation drift apart.
All of this has happened before, in the original example more than than 10 years ago, involving the very same people, the very same issues, merely slightly different law.
In 2010 the ANC Youth League, Malema's original political abode, held an consequence at the Doornfontein campus of Wits University. I was there every bit a reporter. The leader of the league, Julius Malema, sang the song Dubul'ibhunu . As I reported at the time :
"When he sang the song, I didn't notice. It wasn't in English, and no one around me thought it was a huge event at the time. When it became a talking point later, one person actually remarked how some of the students looked a little uncomfortable when Malema sang it.
"The point I'm making hither, is that as a whitie, with an Afrikaans sounding surname, I did not experience threatened, harassed, scared or indeed had any concern for my continued power to exist. In other words, I didn't become the feeling that the people around me were being incited to shoot me."
But what really gave ability to Malema and this song was non that he performed it, only the reaction to it. AfriForum (and the farmers' union TLU — which withal stands for the Transvaal Landbou Unie) took Malema to courtroom. They argued that merely the singing of the song was hate speech.
AfriForum's activity forced the ANC to support Malema — it was forced to fence it was "their" song, every bit part of the Struggle.
Again, as I wrote at the time,
"… now the ANC has to defend the song. Basically, Malema has become a rallying bespeak for people who desire to celebrate ANC traditions. The rights and wrongs of this don't matter. The fact is that Mantashe and Zuma and company, the senior leadership, volition now have no choice merely to back Malema. He will expect like a leader in waiting. It will give him huge momentum, he'll look like a kingmaker. Which is exactly the reverse of what AfriForum wants."
And so it proved.
The case was heard but before the 2011 local government elections. It was our history writ large, existence dissected legally right in front of us. Information technology was, perchance, the near powerful court example since the rape trial of then future president Jacob Zuma in 2006.
The country's only rolling news aqueduct at the time, eNCA, took the case alive; a large screen was erected exterior the court edifice for people to watch proceedings (these days, there are 3 rolling news channels, you can picket Tv set on your telephone and consult social media to satisfy your ain confirmation bias).
The power of the case came from framing information technology as about our history.
AfriForum'south advocate Martin Brassey put a question to the then ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe in court on the issue. Equally I reported that year:
"Brassey of a sudden asked Mantashe if he knew what a certain Zulu phrase meant, earlier reciting a Zulu argument. Mantashe answered, 'Yes'. And then, as the crowd's curiosity grew, Brassey asked, 'And when was it said?'. Mantashe knows his history. The reply was, just earlier Dingaan killed Piet Retief. It was our history produced raw, correct in forepart of u.s., and a really adept analogy of how we are still, to an extent, trapped in it. Malema wasn't part of the interchange, merely he was the main driver for it."
And once more, this has been repeated final week, with Malema taking questions from AfriForum's advocate Marking Oppenheimer. And Malema has used the moment to his full advantage , to talk nearly the black trauma of apartheid, to demand of AfriForum, "Why do yous want to become victims, when we are the biggest victims here, when we have lost everything, when nosotros as blackness people remain a traumatised nation?"
In many ways, at that place is no mode Malema can lose. It is the perfect opportunity for him. It is to his political benefit to exist seen as the one person in the country who will confront anti-blackness racism whenever he sees it.
This suggests that if AfriForum wanted to weaken Malema, it may well have failed. And that in fact this has backfired spectacularly.
It was absolutely foreseeable that this would happen. If a case on exactly the same problems strengthened Malema in 2011, why would information technology not strengthen him in 2022?
All the same, it should also be remembered that what may be happening in our politics is that those on the extremes may exist strengthening each other.
It should be remembered that at that place may be an important distinction between whether Malema is really growing in political power, and whether he is seen as more threatening past sure people.
On the balloter evidence, Malema'south growth was slowing down .
But for AfriForum's constituency, this trial may make him appear more threatening. This could so atomic number 82 to more people joining AfriForum.
This could also be function of a much bigger dynamic. The results of both the 2022 and the 2022 elections have shown some indications of people moving abroad from the centre towards parties based on indigenous identities (parties like the FF+, the IFP and the Patriotic Alliance grew in voting share).
What may be happening in a trial similar this is that the element of a person's identity based on their race, or linguistic communication group, may get more than of import.
To put it another fashion, to see Malema brainwash AfriForum on our real history may button people back into the identities that were forced on them during apartheid.
Or it could be said that this case was ideal to make people choose sides. Y'all are either for AfriForum or for Malema with zero in betwixt, their arguments get.
This, of course, is a false binary, but information technology nonetheless tin be felt in our politics. One tin can take many, many more nuanced views on a song similar this, it is about our history, our present, our aspirations, our fears, our dreams, our politics, our land, our choices, our grandparents and our children and our grandchildren. And much more.
There is no demand to be binary on something like this.
But, our court organisation can only produce winners and losers, it can simply say that either the song is detest oral communication or it is not. And because any effect volition probably be appealed, this process of imposing a binary choice volition continue.
Ane of the key issues in all of this is the "existent" meaning of the words of the song. They hateful both more and less than the words themselves.
Just as Malema means both more and less than the proper noun "Jamnadas" when referring to Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, and when he said "we are not calling for the slaughtering of white people, at to the lowest degree for at present".
This is some other function of the power of such an emotive issue, a song like this is about so much that it cannot be easily defined, and will mean different things to different people.
And this is why bug like this are so powerful, and will remain this powerful, for at to the lowest degree every bit long as our racialised inequality maintains its powerful grip on our order. And there will e'er be plenty of opportunists eager to do good from vehement South Africa apart. DM
Source: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-02-20-song-will-tear-us-apart-again-just-the-way-malema-and-afriforum-want/
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