DA lays charges against ANC Youth League

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is today laying charges against the Free State ANC Youth League Chairperson, Thebe Meeko, for hate speech and intimidation. The DA in the Free State will be laying a criminal charge of intimidation and I am today laying a complaint of hate speech with the Equality Court, in Cape Town (which will be forwarded by the Court to the Free State).

Meeko is quoted in today's papers as saying that University of the Free State vice chancellor Professor Jonathan Jansen should be "shot and killed because he is a racist", and that "like President Jacob Zuma when he said the police must meet fire with fire [referring to police shooting armed criminals], the shoot-to-kill approach must also apply to all the racists, including Jansen - because he is a racist. He must know that we have removed more powerful people than him before. Jansen is equally a criminal like those four racists."

We are laying a criminal charge because we believe this statement is an incitement to cause physical harm to Mr Jansen. We are laying a charge with the Equality Court because the statement is hate speech, as set out in the Constitution.

The ANC and its alliance partners routinely flirt with hate speech, particularly with the incitement of violence and threat of physical harm. There can be no question that it has now crossed the line. The statement in question must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. It is an absolute disgrace. It is embarrassing for us as a country, for the ANC and for the government. It must be met with immediate and decisive consequences.

Most of all it is indicative of the kind of political culture the ANC is fostering under Jacob Zuma: one defined by war-talk, by threats of violence and the use of intimidation. The accusation of racism and the ANC's revolutionary inclinations have merged into a horrific kind of political rhetoric; one which has no place for tolerance. It is an undemocratic language, foreign to most South Africans and not recognised by our Constitution, but increasingly spoken by senior ANC leaders. It must be stopped.

From this incident, one can fairly say the following:

• The ANC and those aligned to it routinely evoke violent rhetoric with no consequences for those who make the statements and no condemnation by the leaders to whom they report. The ruling party sees itself as accountable to a different set of laws from ordinary South Africans;
• Violent language is resorted to, first and foremost, when the ANC is criticised. It is its default response to criticism. It is a party that has lost its ability to identify tolerance, to understand it, or to protect and promote it.
• Implicit in this, are the consequences for the rule of law. If the ANC refuses to recognise or respect the most basic rights - such as the right to life - the implications for all other rights are profound, because when the most basic tenets of democracy become negotiable, everything else is reduced to posturing and rhetoric;
• Jacob Zuma himself must take some responsibility for this trend, these statements are made by those aligned to him in particular - by that army of supporters he has fostered and encouraged at every turn. If there are factions in the ANC, it is Jacob Zuma's faction that lives and breathes the language of violence and intimidation;
• It makes a mockery of the President's assertion that Julius Malema is a leader. In the same way that the President must take some responsibility, so must Julius Malema. It is his organisation that generates this particular brand of hate speech, it is under his leadership that these sorts of remarks are tolerated and promoted and it is because of his inability to control those that report to him, that these based democratic laws are broken.

There is a context which needs to be taken into account. In the last two years, we have heard the KwaZulu-Natal branch of Cosatu state that "There will be blood in the courtroom if they reinstate the charges" (against Zuma). Last year, Julius Malema said, "We are prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma" and COSATU Secretary-General Zwelinzima Vavi echoed these sentiments saying, "...because Jacob Zuma is one of us, and he is one of our leaders, for him, we are prepared to lay our lives and to shoot and kill." Last week uMkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans' Association advised Kader Asmal "to go to the nearest cemetery and die" in response to his criticism of certain ANC leaders and policies.

The question now is a simple one: what is the ANC going to do about it? Will it act to end this kind of violent discourse that promotes excitative terror, or will it draw a line in the sand and stand up for tolerance.

The DA has forced some consequences. The ANCYL will now have to explain itself in court.

But what of the ANC leadership?

What will Jacob Zuma do?

What will Gwede Mantashe do?

What will Julius Malema do?

The responses of these people will tell us everything we need to know about the ANC. Whether it regards this kind of rhetoric as acceptable, or whether it acts decisively to send out the right message.

Meeko should be suspended immediately, face disciplinary action and accept any consequences that result from his outburst.

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