THE ANTI-APARTHEID SONG TRIGGERING TRUMP

On 21 May, US President Donald Trump hosted his South African counterpart at the White House. Cyril Ramaphosa had hoped the meeting would end months of sour relations between the two countries after Trump repeatedly made baseless allegations that White South Africans are persecuted.

However, thanks to Trump, the meeting quickly turned into a PowerPoint presentation of outright fake news and half-truths. From a video that Trump falsely claimed showed gravesites of victims of the alleged mass killings of White South Africans, to lies about the South African government allowing violent land grabs, the US president dished it all out.

However, most of Trump's venom was directed towards one man: Julius Malema, the leader of South Africa's Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) opposition party. According to Trump, he was the one leading the alleged persecution.

Trump played a 2023 video of Malema singing an apartheid-era song - K*ll the Boer. Trump claimed the song was a call for the k*lling of White people. Fake news!

In fact, the song emerged during the struggle against apartheid. 'Boer' means farmer in Afrikaans, the language spoken by South Africans of Dutch descent. However, in the South African context, it loosely refers to all White people who are of Dutch origin, the group that designed, crafted and dominated the apartheid system.

So when freedom fighters sang about 'k*lling the Boer,' they were not talking about k*lling individual Boers but about bringing down the racist, oppressive system of apartheid. And now, when Malema and his EFF supporters sing about shooting the Boer, they are talking about ridding the country of the remnants of that system, which perpetuates the economic misery that many Black South Africans still endure.

The song calls for an end to the race-based economic inequality that’s seen the White-minority continue to hold the lion's share of the national cake. These are facts that Trump already knows but chooses to ignore. But when were facts ever important to Trump?