Politics / 21 August 2019, 1:27pm / Zintle Mahlati
Johannesburg – The EFF is calling for the removal of Die Stem from the national anthem following the Equality Court judgment declaring the gratuitous display of the old apartheid flag as hate speech.
The party welcomed the court ruling handed down on Wednesday by Judge Phineas Mojapelo.
Mojapelo said the display of the apartheid flag does harm and should be
considered hate speech, unfair discrimination and harassment.
The application was brought by the Nelson Mandela Foundation which
asked the court to declare the display of this flag as illegal and
impose sanctions on those who display it freely in public.
The
EFF said the ruling was a milestone and victory and that the apartheid
flag and the Die Stem were part of the same symbol of white supremacy
and as such, the anthem should be changed to exclude Die Stem.
“It must be a common cause that the apartheid national anthem must
follow after its flag. The apartheid flag and its anthem belong to the
same species. They are the two sides of one coin. When white
supremacists display the flag, they salute it by singing Die Stem
because they belong in the same anti-black racism performance acts,”
said the party in a statement.
“In light of this ruling, we call on [President Cyril] Ramaphosa to
remove Die Stem from our national anthem. Forcing black people to sing
Die Stem is like asking them each day to salute the apartheid flag.”
The old South African flag has often been seen as a symbol of hate and
bloodshed and its display has often provoked strong opinions from the
public.
Mojapelo said no good could come from gratuitously
displaying the old flag and those who do so and not display the new
democratic flag, choose oppression over liberating symbols.
He said those who display also aim to insult and express feelings of white supremacy.IOL
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