Mbalula: No longer a need to chant ‘Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer’:
The ANC believes there is no longer a justification for chanting the anti-apartheid slogan “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer” but will also “not water it down to kiss the boer”, the party’s secretary general Fikile Mbalala said on Friday.
“The focus for us now is transformation and transformation of the economy for the best interest of others,” he said on the sidelines of the party’s national executive committee (NEC) meeting in Boksburg.
The meeting was expected to discuss, among other issues, the national budget, as well as the country’s deteriorating relationship with the United States, partly over what the Trump administration has characterised as the persecution of white South Africans.
“We can not prescribe to other political parties what they must sing, what they must chant and what they can not chant and that’s where we stand in that matter,” Mbalula said.
He spoke a day after the constitutional court dismissed an application by right-wing Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum for leave to appeal previous rulings that Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader president Julius Malema‘s public chanting of “Kill the Boer” did not amount to hate speech.
In 2022, the equality court dismissed AfriForum’s complaint against the EFF and Malema for singing the chant on multiple occasions between 2016 and 2019. Malema had previously testified that the chants against white apartheid rule “should not be interpreted literally, but within the context of the struggle and the political message that it sought to agitate”.
In its ruling on Thursday, the constitutional court said it had concluded that Afriforum’s latest application “should be dismissed as it bears no reasonable prospects of success”.
On Friday Mbalula said the decision of the court should be respected, adding: “As the ANC, we are not chanting ‘kill the boer, kill the farmer’ because we don’t believe it is relevant at the present moment, but we would not stop others from chanting”.
“It is not illegal as it is now defined by the constitutional court. As the ANC, we wouldn’t chant that slogan — nor would we water it down to ‘kiss the boer’ — because when we chanted that slogan, it had a particular meaning.”
Mbalula also addressed ongoing discussions in the government of national unity about the recently tabled national budget, which coalition partners such as the Democratic Alliance (DA) and opposition parties like the EFF have vowed to vote down in parliament, over a proposed hike in VAT.
This is despite Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana on 12 March scaling back his proposed VAT increase to one percentage point to be applied over two financial years, half of what he had initially sought in his abandoned initial budget review in February.
On Friday, Godongwana told finance committees in parliament that the DA had previously written a letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa accepting the VAT increase in exchange for the scrapping of recently passed controversial laws such as the Expropriation Act.
Asked for comment on this, DA spokesperson Karabo Khakhau accused Godongwana of negotiating in bad faith.
“It is not a secret that the DA has been negotiating with the ANC over measures to remove obstacles to the creation of economic growth and jobs and create an enabling environment to move us off the high debt, low growth trajectory and onto a path to prosperity,” she said.
“We have demanded a series of growth enhancing reforms and a plan to lower taxes over the next three years. That’s the only thing that can work to bring relief for tax.
“It is a pity that the finance minister, who made a hack job of the process in the first place, is now trying to negotiate in bad faith through the media when we are doing so in good faith through the channels created for this without being honest about the fact that we called for the reduction of tax in the next three years.”
Asked for his comment on the negotiations, Mbalula said the DA had not written to the ANC, but added that it was possible the letter had been sent to Ramaphosa.
“I can confirm that there have been engagements on the question of the budget at the level of parliament between the ANC and other parties that will include the DA,” he said.
“At the end of this, we will assert the matter guided by the NEC. Should anything arise from the NEC from its wisdom in terms of the budget issue, we will communicate that. It is absolutely important that the budget must be passed.”
Defence lawyer for accused one in Joslin Smith trial says client was tortured:
The defence lawyer for Jacquen “Boeta” Appollis, the first accused in the trial about the alleged kidnapping and trafficking of Joslin Smith, on Friday said his client had been tortured and made to give a statement under duress when he was taken into questioning on 4 March last year.
Advocate Fanie Harmse cross-examined investigating officer Captain Wesley Lombard about the night Appollis and his co-accused, Stefano van Rhyn, were taken in for questioning at the Sea Border police station.
Harmse presented his client’s evidence, saying Appollis had been taken into a boardroom, physically assaulted and threatened to give a statement or “he is going to die”.
“Accused one said he was indeed threatened and if he said anything to anybody about having been assaulted, he would suffer more punishment and torture, even death,” Harmse said in the Western Cape high court sitting in Saldanha Bay.
Lombard said this was not true, and no cases of assault were reported to him.
According to Harmse, police officers handcuffed Appollis and ordered him to sit on the floor and bring his knees towards his arms. They then pushed a rod in between his arms and legs and raised him off the floor.
Harmse said the officers placed a black plastic bag over Appollis’s head, and a man slapped him very hard. The plastic bag was held tight around his neck so he couldn’t breathe. This was done to the accused repeatedly, the lawyer said.
“Accused one said the officers kept forcing him to tell them what happened, and while the plastic bag was on his head, they were hitting him with batons on his hands, feet and head, and it was very sore and he couldn’t breathe,” Harmse added.
Lombard said he had not witnessed any of these actions against Appollis, but added that he was in and out of the building when the accused were kept in custody. He did however confirm that Appollis’s left eye was blue and swollen. But when Lombard asked Appollis at the time if he had been assaulted by the police, he said no.
The trial, which commenced on 3 March, was set to conclude on 28 March, but Judge Nathan Erasmus ruled that the admissibility of the two accused’s statements would need to be tested in a trial within a trial.
Joslin disappeared from her Saldanha Bay home on 19 February 2024, and the accused are her mother Kelly Smith and her boyfriend Appollis, as well as the pair’s friend, Van Rhyn.
All three have pleaded not guilty of kidnapping and trafficking, but former co-accused Lourentia Lombaard, who turned state witness, has testified that Smith and Appollis planned to sell Joslin to a sangoma for R20 000.
On Friday, Van Rhyn’s attorney Nobahle Mkabayi said her client had also been assaulted by the police officers on duty.
“I have perused the statement with a fine comb. On my perusal I’ve realised that the statement is not an unequivocal admission of guilt that is required by law… It’s not a confession,” she said.
“If I argue that it was an admission, I argue that it was only an admission of fact admitted under the following circumstances: My client was not the author of the admission, the admission was prescribed to him. That means he didn’t make those admissions freely and voluntarily. He was tortured and it cannot be said that he made them under sober senses or sound mind, and he was unduly influenced.”
Erasmus said the trial would continue on Tuesday, and warned the defence and state to prepare themselves for long days ahead.
An indigestible helping of hype:
We keep on hearing that there is an ongoing battle for dominance among the supermarket chains.
Woolworths is clinging to its perch at the top end of the market, Pick n Pay is tightening its belt by closing some stores and Checkers is making advances on all fronts.
Desperate shoppers (not just housewives) were hoping that this struggle for supremacy would result in a price war.
The weekly shopping would not be an agonising experience. A glance at the price tags wouldn’t have you reaching for the blood pressure tablets. And handing over your card at the till wouldn’t result in a snooty message from the bank saying that your account is in arrears.
Sadly this isn’t the case and there has been no let-up in the weekly price increases.
The constant search in those glossy advertising inserts must continue. Is there somewhere with a vaguely affordable price for olive oil? Is there a special on tins of butter beans or tomatoes? Can you afford to buy some fruit this week (even if it’s just bananas and apples)?
And then you have to spend your precious time off from work going from store to store to find the bargains. While you are doing this you can scowl at the lucky few who stroll up and down the aisles at Woolies filling their trolleys with pre-packed salads, tenderstem broccoli, Egyptian grapes and Karoo lamb chops.
Spare a glance also for those who are just there for the buy-three-get-one-free tins of baked beans.
This time would be much better spent lying on the couch binge watching trash TV to recover from the stressful jobs we have to do to earn the money to pay for these overpriced food items.
Instead of simply tempting us with reasonable prices the companies have chosen as their weapons of choice some “celebrities”, with Pick??n??Pay wheeling out Rick Ross and Schalk Bezuidenhout for a recent promotion.
Rick Ross is an American rapper who, in a long career, has sold millions of albums but whose major claim to fame is the size of his swimming pool and the parties he throws there. The highlight of these parties seems to be when the host hurls his considerable bulk into the pool from a diving board, giving new meaning to the term belly flop. Schalk Bedzuidenhout is an Afrikaans comedian with a “snor”.
What does this odd couple have to do with the price of eggs? What demographic is the company hoping to attract? What were those ponytailed creatives at the ad agency thinking?
Far more appealing to me would be the Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart tag team. They should really be known as the Teflon Twins because nothing bad seems to stick to them.
Snoop Dogg has the full range of gangs, guns and ganja to his name but he remains “loveable Snoop”, a bit like a large labradoodle that bites the Checkers Sixty60 delivery guy at the gate, pees against the front door and steals the boerie at the braai, but you still let him snuggle up to you on the couch.
Plus he has a really great back catalogue of music, especially those first albums. And he already has a ready-made foodie theme tune, Peaches N Cream, although the lyrics might need to be amended for sensitive viewers.
Martha Stewart was a successful entrepreneur in the home and hospitality sector before she had to make do with the hospitality at a federal prison after being jailed for fraud. She served five months and emerged unscathed to resume her profitable business career and a popular television show partnership with the Snoop.
You can just picture Snoop lighting up a blunt at the rotisserie chicken counter and Martha sampling the ciabatta loaf at the bakery.
Checkers took a slightly different approach by using Jamie Oliver to promote its partnership with Discovery Vitality’s HealthyFood benefit. “It pays to live better,” says Jamie as he sidles up to shoppers in the checkout queue at Checkers.
The first problem here is that Discovery actually charges you a monthly fee to be part of the Vitality scheme. The second problem is that after I have paid the massive monthly fee for my hospital plan (for three people) there is not much money left to pay for those pricey avos that Jamie merrily drops into the shoppers’ baskets. You’ll find me in the lentils and rice aisle, mate.
The third problem is that Jamie is just so indefinably irritating. Preachily healthy, calculatingly Cockney and nauseatingly “chuffed”.
He must have been paid a good pile of dosh to come and convince us that we should be happy with the “rewards” that we get for making these “healthy choices”. And the question that always springs to mind in these situations is, “Does he really need to do this?”
He owns several restaurants, has published more than 35 books, churns out a neverending list of television series and has endorsed a pile of kitchen equipment. Does he really need another slice of the promotional pie? Another bite of the advertising cherry?
I suppose we must just be thankful that they didn’t choose the more overtly irritating Gordon Ramsay, who just can’t stop himself churning out more programmes where he swears at hapless restaurant owners and chefs.
And how about George Clooney? Does he really need to make an ad for a coffee machine? Of course, there is the villa on Lake Como to pay for.
I guess my mother was right when she used to lash me about my extreme laziness and lack of ambition, because my Lotto winner fantasy does not feature anything resembling work, unless walking barefoot on a beach of pristine sand with waves lapping at my feet counts as a chore.
Submit and get free exposure here: Showcase Your Business | Advertise Your Special Offers.
