Kill the Boer: Elon Musk and the anti-apartheid song

South Africa's highest court has rejected a renewed bid to outlaw a controversial song from the country's apartheid era that has been condemned by Elon Musk as promoting white genocide.

The Constitutional Court has rejected an application to appeal its 2022 ruling that the song "Kill the Boer" does not "incite violence" but is a "historic struggle song".

Following the decision, the Black nationalist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party released a video of its leader, Julius Malema, singing the apartheid-era song at a political rally – prompting Musk to tweet his outrage at the "whole arena chanting about killing white people".

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'Shouldn't be taken literally'

The song's actual name is "Dubul' ibhunu", a Xhosa phrase that does translate as "kill the Boer". Boer is the Afrikaans word for "farmer", and can mean a farmer of any race. But "since the 19th century (when Britain fought two wars against the Boers), it has also meant 'Afrikaans person'", referring to the descendants of white Dutch settlers in South Africa, said Al Jazeera.

To its defenders, the song "commemorates the fight against apartheid and shouldn't be taken literally", said The Associated Press. Originally sung at anti-apartheid protests in the 1980s and early 1990s, it is often accompanied by "toyi-toyi", a military-style stamping dance "that remains synonymous with Black political rallies in South Africa", historian Thula Simpson told Al Jazeera. These days, "Kill the Boer" is associated with EFF rallies, where renditions are "often punctuated by people pretending to shoot Kalashnikov rifles".

In 2010, Malema sang "Kill the Boer" at ANC rallies – he was then the leader of the party's youth movement – angering conservatives who said it "was no longer appropriate" and linked the lyrics to violence against white farmers, historian Susana Molins-Lliteras, from the University of Cape Town, told El País. A court subsequently ruled that the song was "hate speech" and banned it, setting off a prolonged legal battle that appears to have finally come to an end in favour of the 2022 ruling that it is not, in fact, an incitement to violence.

'Stoke indignation'

Musk, who was born and raised in South Africa but left before the end of apartheid, has railed against "Kill the Boer" multiple times over the years, and even called for a boycott of The New York Times after it published an article in which South African historians defended the song.

For President Donald Trump, "Kill the Boer" is one of several South African "political hotcakes" that can be used to stoke indignation within the Maga movement, said Al Jazeera. Trump has previously accused South Africa of encouraging violence against its white minority and confiscating the land of white farmers.

Both Musk's and Trump's reaction to "Kill the Boer" have been noticeably "more extreme" than that of AfriForum, the Afrikaner rights group who lost their appeal application, said the broadcaster. AfriForum has declined to suggest any kind of "white genocide" is taking place in South Africa. "They have to paint within the lines," said historian Simpson. "Trump and Musk, however, have no such limitations."