19 February 2004
A headline in today's edition of the Citizen Newspaper screams "Racist slogans anger parties". According to this page 3 story, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Freedom Front (FF) intend to complain to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) against the ANC, SACP and COSATU for apparent use of slogans such as "Tired with Boers", "Fed up with Boers" and "Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer" in a protest march. This ANC-SACP-COSATU led protest march was in Phalaborwa on Monday, 16 February during the court appearance of Mark Scott-Crossley who is accused of feeding his employee, Nelson Chisale, to lions.
Clearly, the DA and other right-wing elements are opportunistically seizing upon the appearance of these slogans in order to turn attention away from the reality that many black people, in particular farm workers, are subject to continuing racism, exploitation, degrading and inhumane treatment at the hands of their mainly white employers. According to the DA & others of its ilk, suddenly, the ANC-led movement have become racists. The racists of yesterday suddenly do not recall ever supporting apartheid. Somehow they cannot see how their opposition to affirmative, employment equity and broad-based black economic empowerment reinforces racism and disempowerment of black people. Bizarrely, they believe that the entrenchment of capitalism in a post-apartheid South Africa will deracialise our society.
No, we will not be intimidated. South African public discourse must not be misled by this melodrama of the DA and FF. As these forces which blatantly stand for racial privilege proceed with their opportunistic complaint to the SAHRC let them be aware that the Communist Party, working with its allies and the mass of our people, will spare no effort in the decades long struggle against racism and for non-racialism. We will go all the way to teach all our people through action about the reality of racism and capitalist exploitation in a post-apartheid South Africa. Unlike the DA and the FF, our interest is not to protect apartheid privileges, our tactics are not melodramatic. We will continue with the just struggle to expose racism, exploitation and inhumane treatment. We will reach out to black and white South Africans about this reality.
For the record, from the 1990s the Communist Party has refused to accept and associate itself with these slogans. This remains our position today. We have always stated that in effect these slogans give space to the real racists to turn the tables away from their racism whilst also shaping public discourse. We call on all our people not to fall into this trap.