ANC YOUTH LEAGUE STATEMENT ON THE BANNING OF ANC SONGS BY EQUALITY COURT
14 September 2011
The African National Congress has noted the judgment delivered by Judge Collins Lamont on Monday, the 11th of September 2011. There are so many glaring flaws and misrepresentation of reality in the judgment delivered. Part of these flaws include, but not limited to the following:
The Judge has granted the complainant what they never asked the Court to grant. In the presentation of their case, both Afri-Forum and TAU-SA recurrently said that they are not calling for the songs to be banned, but asking for a possible dialogue. The Judge chose to give them what they did not ask for and ban many liberation songs of the ANC led Liberation Movement.
The Judge made remarks to the effect that the Equality Act is enacted to protect minorities only, which is not true because all laws in South Africa are designed to protect all citizens equally. The Judge is concerned with protection of minorities' interests at the expense of black people's aspirations.
The Judge's conception of Ubuntu is totally flawed and opportunistically used to reach horrible conclusions.
The Judge's only pre-occupation was with protection of what Afri-Forum and TAU-SA said to the extent of relying on inflammatory evidence and false alarms of insecure groupings on possible genocide, which will never happen in South Africa. The judgment reflects hatred of individuals, not protection of South African laws and Constitution.
The judgment also echoes a trend in Court judgments that seek to criminalise the struggle against apartheid, to the extent that Freedom Fighters are referred to as Murderers by South African Courts.
What the judgment has revealed is that despite political democracy and majority rule, the minorities continue to control South Africa through Courts and control of the South African economy. This judgment is a revelation that minorities continue to control our lives in every aspect, including on aspects of which songs we should sing. We should ask a question of whether the struggle is over when white supremacy continues to dominate all aspects of South African life.
The ANC Youth has met and will continue to meet with fraternal organisations to formulate an appeal to both the Supreme Court of Appeals and Constitutional Court. The ANC Youth League and its leadership will never apologise for singing struggle songs, because that is what inspires our courage and determination to fight for total liberation of the people of South Africa. Songs of the ANC led liberation movement will never be banned and the ANC Youth League will work with all fraternal organisations to unban our songs. When apartheid banned political formations and activities of black people and Africans in particular, they masses of our people unbanned them and we will also unban our liberation songs.
The judgment serves as a clarion call that we should fight tirelessly for the total liberation of the people of South Africa. We cannot forever live in a society where an absolute component of land, minerals wealth, culture, heritage, Courts and everything is owned and controlled by Settlers. No Settler brought land to Africa, and no Coloniser will impose on us how our lives are lived.
Statement issued by the ANC Youth League, September 14 2011
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