LISTEN: Thabo Mbeki says 'Kill the Boer' now 'politically irrelevant'
Former president Thabo Mbeki believes the ‘Kill the Boer" chant has no political relevance in post-apartheid South Africa.
The chant has been the subject of fierce debate and court cases over the past few months.
EFF leader Julius Malema used the chant last month at the closing of the EFF's tenth birthday celebrations at the FNB stadium.
Mbeki said the chant was made popular by former ANC Youth League leader Peter Mokaba during the struggle against apartheid.
Mokaba was an ANC politician, who had been the ANC Youth League president and a Member of Parliament.
Mbeki shared his sentiments at the Unisa dialogue event hosted by the Thabo Mbeki School of Public and International Relations on Thursday.
The former president added that the now controversial chant contains slogans that have context that have become irrelevant, but are still part of history.
He said the slogans that people were shouting in 1952 were irrelevant, and did not mean that people were to leave the FNB Stadium and hunt for farmers.
Malema had defended the chant, saying the Equality Court found that the chant does not amount to hate speech.
"There is no song, 'Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer'. That is a chant. We over-explained it in court. If you have a problem with it, go to the records of the courts.
"Don't be lazy to read, and ask me the same all over again and again. And I won in court. The court said there is nothing wrong in singing 'Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer’”.
AfriForum had approached the Equality Court to declare the song hate speech, but their case was dismissed a year ago.
It filed an appeal, saying it believes the judgment has fundamental errors.
The Supreme Court of Appeal is due to hear the application in September.
