By Nigel Branken
I have seen white people questioning the singing of the song “Kill the Boer” (Dubul’ ibhunu), often suggesting that, regardless of what the courts have said, it should be stopped for the sake of better relations in our country. The sentiment often goes like this: “I don’t want to get political, but if I were the president, I would simply tell people to stop singing the song. It doesn’t matter what the courts say—this kind of song just deepens division and offends people, so we should put an end to it for the sake of unity.”
I understand that these views may come from a place of wanting peace. But sometimes, the way we pursue peace unintentionally reinforces the very power dynamics that created the conflict in the first place. So here is my response to that line of thinking.
The phrase “Kill the Boer” comes from the song Dubul’ ibhunu, which was sung during the liberation struggle against apartheid. It is not, and never was, a literal call to kill white farmers. Rather, it is a symbolic expression rooted in a context where “Boer” represented the violent system of white minority rule. It is a cry of resistance against a regime that brutalized the majority of South Africans. To strip the song of its historical and political meaning and interpret it literally as “kill the farmer” is to erase the lived experience of those who were fighting for their freedom.
This is not simply a matter of opinion—it has been tested in the courts. The Equality Court, in its 2022 ruling (AfriForum v Malema and Others), found that the song does not amount to hate speech. Judge Roland Sutherland wrote:
“The words are not to be taken literally… The phrase ‘Kill the Boer’ is not a call to incite violence against a specific group, but has historically and culturally been used as a chant to express resistance to oppression.”
In March 2025, the Constitutional Court dismissed AfriForum’s appeal, stating that the application had “no reasonable prospects of success,” thereby affirming the Equality Court’s nuanced and contextual interpretation.
So when people say, “Regardless of the court ruling, this song should not be sung,” they are not simply expressing a personal discomfort—they are dismissing decades of historical struggle, the findings of the judiciary, and the cultural significance of a liberation song that belongs to a people who resisted dehumanization.
But it goes deeper than that. The idea that the song must be silenced—especially when framed as a “non-political” or “reasonable” position—is a textbook example of how white victimhood and white normalization operate.
White victimhood is a phenomenon where members of historically dominant groups position themselves as victims when systems of oppression are challenged or dismantled. It allows for a shift in focus—from the trauma of the oppressed to the discomfort of the privileged. Under this framework, a liberation song becomes an attack, and expressions of Black pain and struggle are seen as “divisive” or “violent,” even when they are symbolic and historically grounded.
This victimhood lens becomes a tool of power. It reframes the conversation in such a way that those who benefited from apartheid, or continue to benefit from its legacy, become the ones who are “hurt,” “threatened,” or “offended”—while those still dealing with the generational trauma of dispossession, poverty, and state violence are expected to tone down their voices to preserve the fragile feelings of others.
But this is not just about white victimhood. It’s also about white normalization—the idea that whiteness gets to decide what is reasonable, what is offensive, what is threatening, and what is acceptable public discourse.
This shows up clearly in the translation itself. The song has been mistranslated and misrepresented. Instead of engaging with the original language, the cultural context, and the political symbolism, people default to a white-centric translation: “kill the farmer.” Not because that’s accurate, but because it fits a narrative in which white people are positioned as the endangered victims of Black rage.
That act of translation is not neutral—it is an exercise of power. To take a song rooted in resistance and redefine it through a lens of white discomfort is to erase its meaning. It says: “Your language must make sense to me. Your history must comfort me. Your symbolism must be filtered through my lens, or it is invalid.” That is how whiteness maintains dominance—not only through systems and institutions, but through narrative control.
Even the phrasing—“I don’t want to be political, but…”—is deeply political. It pretends to be objective, neutral, or common sense, while making a profoundly political claim: that white discomfort should be prioritized over Black memory, that symbolic protest should be silenced to maintain social order, and that liberation songs are threats, not testimonies.
This pattern is familiar. Anything that challenges injustice—whether a statue falling, a slogan chanted, or a song sung—is quickly recast as divisive, dangerous, or hateful. That recasting is not accidental. It is the noise that tries to drown out the truth. It is the denial that refuses to acknowledge the deep roots of inequality. And it is the erasure that happens when those who have power insist on being the interpreters of everyone else’s reality.
So when I hear people say, “Just stop singing the song,” I hear something much louder behind it. I hear a refusal to confront history. I hear an insistence that whiteness must remain the default lens. I hear a demand that the oppressed must perform peace on terms dictated by the powerful.
But real reconciliation doesn’t come from silencing truth. It doesn’t come from rewriting songs, misrepresenting history, or demanding that people forget the language of their struggle. Real reconciliation comes when we sit with the discomfort. When we listen without needing to control the story. When we resist the urge to translate resistance into threat, or grief into aggression.
This moment calls for more than silencing—it calls for reckoning. For truth-telling. For a dismantling of the interpretive authority that whiteness has long held. If we are to move forward, we must be willing to hear songs we do not understand, feel the discomfort of stories that are not ours, and allow those who have been silenced for generations to speak—and sing—in their own voice, in their own words, and on their own terms.
More by Nigel Branken
Nigel Branken is a South African social worker, pastor, and activist committed to racial justice, decolonisation, and collective healing. He descends from a complex and deeply entangled lineage that includes two former South African presidents—Martinus Steyn, of the Orange Free State, who helped found the National Party alongside Barry Hertzog, and Paul Kruger, who played a key role in the founding of Johannesburg. His ancestry also traces back to 1820 British settlers, and, in a profound twist of history, to Maria van Angola, a dark-skinned Black enslaved woman who arrived in the Cape in 1655 aboard the Amersfoort.
Though biographically and historically shaped by this layered ancestry, Nigel lives in the world—and has been treated—as a white South African man. He grew up under apartheid, was educated in white-only schools, and benefited from the structures of white privilege. His awakening began when he left school and studied social work at the University of Natal, where he encountered alternative narratives and began to critically examine the legacies of race, colonialism, and injustice that had shaped his own life and the nation around him.
Nigel now works alongside displaced and marginalised communities, challenging systems of inequality and advocating for a more just and honest reckoning with South Africa’s past and present. His public voice is deeply informed by this personal journey—from inherited power to chosen solidarity.