Is our history now hate speech?

In South Africa it is legal, though frowned upon, to raise the old flag. Die Stem is part of the national anthem. Yet songs about the all-too-recent struggle are now hate speech.

Makes no sense does it. Unless one is prepared to accept that black people are some kind of mindless, easily excitable rabble which needs only the rendition of a few bars of a song to go on a murderous spree.

This scares and shocks me on many levels. That some would seek to airbrush parts of our history, the very convenient manner in which people seek to justify their own paranoia, and most crucially, just how unequal this whole negotiated settlement business is turning out to have been.

Bok van Blerk can cry out for the wartime leaders who ruled this country with an iron fist for 90% of the last century. Julius Malema cannot commemorate the struggle that brought an end to that tyranny. How did we get here?

Farm murders are not caused by the singing of struggle songs any more than Mshini Wami is responsible for the ructions in Cope. Well nothing sane or logical can explain Cope, but that is besides the point.

It is paranoid and short-sighted to suggest that farm murders are motivated by some deep “swart gevaar” anger than the kind of criminality that sees black people suffer the brunt of criminal activity from their own countrymen.

The recent killings in Shongweni and Tshelimnyama show that violent, cruel murder can be perpetrated against black people as readily as it is against whites. We live in a cruel, violent, criminal society. It affects us all, especially the vulnerable.

The things is that isolated farm houses are an easy target for criminals. Seeking to fuel bias and prejudice in examining the unfortunate phenomenon is at best intellectually deficient, at worst, very sinister. Trying to black out our nation’s history, and a source of unity and pride for 80% of this country, that is very, very dangerous.

Instead of pointing fingers and smugly caressing our stereotypes, let’s tackle the real causes of violent crime. And leave the petty point-scoring to the people whose living and very relevance depends on it.

And by the way, the name of the song is Ayesaba Amagwala.

This blog originally appeared on Newstime