Former president Thabo Mbeki has questioned EFF leader Julius Malema’s continued chanting of the Dubul’ ibhunu (Kill the Boer) song in light of its having no political relevance in post-apartheid South Africa, News24 reports.
Mbeki was speaking on Thursday night at a dialogue held by UNISA’s Thabo Mbeki School of Public and International Affairs.
According to TimesLIVE, Mbeki said of the song: ‘It was there in the movement, but you would hardly hear of it. It was Peter [Mokaba, an ANC Youth League leader in the early 1990s, and latterly an MP] who liked this thing. There was no ANC policy to kill the Boer. There was no anti-white policy.
‘You could understand why Peter would say ‘kill the Boer, kill the farmer’ then. When I saw Julius (Malema) the other day on TV saying this thing, I was asking myself why is it necessary? We can’t be singing it now. There’s no MK that’s going to be killing anyone, so why do we sing it?’
EWN reported Mbeki as saying: ‘The slogans have a context, people were shouting slogans in 1952, by 1962 they became irrelevant, but they are a part of our history.’
Peter Mokaba sang it at a memorial event for Chris Hani. After that it was taken up by the ANC Youth League and then the EFF.