Song ban a farce, says ANC

2010-03-30 14:27

Johannesburg - The High Court bid to ban the song with the words "shoot the Boer" was a farce, the ANC said on Tuesday.

"It appears to us that an artificial contestation was created to arrive at a predetermined outcome," said ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe briefing the media on the meeting of party officials held on Monday.

The party arrived at this conclusion after studying the judgment.

"They [the respondent and the applicant] are in the same organisation...they went to court with a predetermined outcome.

"They went there to go through the motions."

Ruling

Mantashe was referring to a ruling in the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Friday that the use of the words "Dubula ibhunu" was unconstitutional and unlawful.

Delmas businessman Willem Harmse applied for the interdict to prevent his colleague Mohammed Vawda from using the words on banners and using them during a planned march against crime. Both men belong to the same organisation, the Society for the Protection of the Constitution.

ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu described the judgment as incompetent.

"[The judgment] was just a freeline judgment...there is so much injustice that emanates from the judgment," he said.

The ANC will appeal the judgment to get a more correct constitutional interpretation of the struggle songs it deems to form a big part of the country's history.

"...the hot debate about the freedom struggle songs is a manifestation of a society that has not come to terms with its past.

"We are dealing with a society that wants to wish its own history away by picking up on any petty issue that triggers disagreements and conflict," Mantashe said.

- SAPA