Identity Politics and Apartheid Era-Chanting
Divisive slogans are not in the best interest of advancing communism worldwide, but neither is revving up the "white genocide" machine
An old anti-apartheid chant, “dubul' ibhunu” – “Kill the boer” – has caused a commotion. The chant has been recently embraced by Julius Malema, the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, a left-wing South African party advocating for land redistribution to Black South Africans. Some Americans, from Elon Musk (a white South African who is officially the wealthiest person alive), to various right-wingers, and even some “MAGA communist”-adjacent folks claimed the chant incites anti-white violence, as “boer” means “white farmer.”
While reactionary responses are odious, they’re also obvious. I care more about the conceits people calling themselves “Marxist” accept.
The Economic Freedom Fighters say they do not want to “kill white farmers” and are using a popular anti-apartheid chant to rally people against a system still entrenched in all the same dynamics of that era. However, many do not believe this.
I find the chant objectionable, but not for being “anti-white." To accept the framing of “anti-whiteness,” one is accepting the framing of “whiteness.” If “white identity is under attack,” then there must be a “white identity.” The fact is, “apartheid-era European colonists" can't accurately represent “white people,” so unless people want to make the claim there is something essential at play, making a serious argument about something highly regional and historical being “racist against white people" is ultimately an argument that having light skin makes one fundamentally different from having dark skin.
Implicitly, to draw lines based on whiteness (and thus “white identity") alone is to create racial conflict, whether that is for woke reasons or anti-woke ones.
The Chant
Malema and (more credibly due to their lack of affiliation with Malema) various South African historians argue that the chant should not be taken as a literal call to violence. It originated during the apartheid era and was meant as a battle cry against an oppressive system. However, critics, including white opposition leader John Steenhuisen, have filed charges against Mr. Malema at the United Nations Human Rights Council, claiming farm murders have escalated due to his "demagoguery."
Malema maintains he has a right to chant the song. Last year, a South African court ruling upheld his right to do so, stating that the lyrics did not demonstrate a clear intention to incite harm or propagate hatred. The chant's supporters view it as a rallying call against historical injustices, while critics see it as potentially dangerous rhetoric.
I believe Malema when he says it is not a call to violence, but I also see exactly why people wouldn't.
Personally, I disagree with the use of the song as a tactic. If attention is currency, getting attention one can't control is like getting a loan. In the short term, it may enable something, but in the long term, it will be a cost. For something like this, I think the cost outweighs the short-term benefit. Though, it is important to note that I have no experience organizing people in Africa.
Though I do not see the chant as encouraging solidarity across racial lines, I do not see this chant as “anti-white.” Instead, I see it as a holdover from when black people were persecuted explicitly by white people, and the “different teams” seemed evident.
By saying, “Kill the boer,” the EFF summons that fight. To some extent, this makes perfect sense, as many of the issues in South Africa can be traced back to the legacy of apartheid, a system of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination enforced by the government from 1948 to 1994.
During the apartheid era, Black South Africans were subjected to systemic oppression, denied fundamental human rights, and forcibly removed from their homes and communities. This led to severe social, economic, and political inequalities, and while it officially ended in 1994 and South Africa transitioned to democracy, the effects of apartheid continue to linger.
Many of today's problems in South Africa, including issues with land ownership, wealth disparities, high crime rates, and racial tensions, can be linked to the historical injustices perpetuated by the apartheid system.
History
Because of all this historical context, “Kill the boer” is not a literal statement (at least inherently). Yes, the colonial invaders from Europe dating back to the 1600s were white. However, being white is not why they were colonial invaders; the Dutch East India Company established the first European settlement at Cape Town in 1652, primarily due to its strategic location and valuable resources.
While one side was white and the other black, race wasn’t the reason for colonization. South Africa's location at the southern tip of Africa made it an ideal stopover point for European ships headed to Asia. The region is/was also rich in natural resources, including gold, diamonds, minerals, and fertile land suitable for agriculture. Further, South Africa was a strategic location for military outposts to protect trade routes and other interests in the Indian Ocean and beyond.
However, if one asks why racial atrocities happen, many will answer with some variant of “because of race.” This is untrue in any but the most surface-level read, which is unfortunately the level it seems most political discourse operates on.
Racism is often violent, but even in its most benign forms (see: The White Man’s Burden), it is a justification for pursuing material interests through means or to an extent that would otherwise not be accepted as legitimate when held up to scrutiny.
While South African colonization can be easily seen as “white vs. black,” it is about class. Through war and conquest, European settlers acquired land. This created a system of ownership that heavily favored white settlers and made a subordinate class of black South Africans relegated to working as laborers on white-owned farms and mines.
This is not confusing or arbitrary. It is a straightforward, capitalist result (socialization of production with private/feudal appropriation of product, with ownership of the means creating a ruling and a subordinate class). While the establishment was particular, the result was not.
Materially, race has nothing to do with this. These historical events were not driven by inherent racial superiority, although we can easily map the classes onto race. That easy mapping results from a country that was technologically further along invading another. Supposed genetic superiority doesn't win a war; it's won with resources, organization, and strategy.
The contemporary political focus on identity (“identity politics”) directs people away from these considerations, instead color-coding the ideals of “good” and “bad.” Rather than consider that regional historical context might influence how a region of people might take a slogan, the liberal instinct is to universalize to the US State narrative.
“Kill the boer” isn’t identity politics. However, this response is.
Identity Politics
“Identity politics” supposedly refers to a political approach that centers on the interests and perspectives of specific social or cultural groups. Its proponents argue that it raises awareness about marginalized groups’ unique struggles and needs, thus, empowering them. Its stated goal is to challenge and rectify historical injustices, discrimination, and systemic inequalities.
However, practically speaking, “identity politics” is a system-justifying ideology where main character syndrome, fandom, and lifestyle marketing mix to divert attention from class struggle and create divisions among different subordinate-class groups.
In today’s profile-driven social market, individuals or groups may want to be the center of attention. By focusing on particular identities, some may be directed to think they have a unique and central role in the broader social and political discourse for a reason other than a material basis for power.
This metastasizes into fandom, where individuals or groups passionately support and promote their chosen identity or cause. This “passionate-but-surface level” allegiance may further invoke lifestyle marketing, where people associate themselves with certain identities as part of their own brand or image.
Thus, “identity politics” should be separated from “the political concern of an identity.” To address a law that directly affects an identity is not identity politics, but through this conflation, identity has been legitimized as a diversion from why any law has power. This is why the ruling class pushes it: it's a valuable mode of political discussion and action for them.
Identity is not a valid primary basis for political concern because it does not materially constitute power (and to think it does is racism or other bigotry). The root of power is production, not skin color.
Suppose a group constituted on skin color has power being exercised against it. There are two options in that case: ask those with power to be nice to that identity (identity politics) or class war. Do those who have power have it because of their skin color? No, they do not. While skin color might map onto “powerful and powerless,” it does not create this dichotomy. Class is simply classification, and we will not have any meaningful progress by classifying people based on something arbitrary, like skin color.
Instead, we should classify people based on material relation to power (which, in modern conditions, means relation to production).
For example, being from Appalachia brings specific limitations and particulars. It is a minority, but the identity is not created inherently. It exists due to said limitations and particulars. It is constituted through a group of primarily white people, but “Appalachian identity” is not about being white.
While "Appalachian identity" may be culturally distinct and rooted in a specific region, the advocacy pursued by individuals with this identity revolves around addressing the pressing issues related to poverty, lack of access to quality education and healthcare, and economic marginalization. “Appalachian identity” is not a material basis for this political action. It may, culturally, have constants and reference points, but those eventually map onto some material relationship to power. This may appear to unify a struggle, but that struggle is only superficially unique.
Further, simply saying, “Appalachian people are white and therefore have white identity” is reductive. “White identity” doesn’t bear limitations and particulars because it generalizes many identities. There are no limitations or particulars that exist across the entire “white” spectrum; there are even conflicting ones between different “white” groups. Thus, we must look to people’s material relationship to power for classification.
Now, black people do have historical limitations and particulars at the generalized level (to a much more heinous extent than with Appalachian people). This creates a basis for a “black” cultural identity that does not exist for a “white” one. However, in terms of political action, while some things may affect black people more severely, the source of material power is not different for them. Therefore this identity is not the underlying basis for political struggle. While it certainly can appear that way, the problem is not “white people.”
“Kill the boer” refers to a specific political situation in which superficial traits lined up with class. The point, however, isn’t the superficial traits; it is class. Historically, it was a response to a materially-constituted system rather than an identity-based one – because there is no truly identity-based one. Molema himself, who claims to be a Marxist-Leninist, would likely agree.
Here, identity is a justification, not a determinant. Regionally, a historical context renders this as shorthand for the people there, making it evident as a rallying cry in the class struggle. If that context did not exist, this could be “identity politics, and concern over “anti-whiteness” would perhaps have more weight, but it doesn’t.
Conclusion
As I said earlier, I don’t see this as an effective rallying cry (and therefore not a strategy I condone), but I don’t think it amounts to the concern people are clutching their pearls about.
The response to this as supposed identity politics exposes the lack of curiosity of people trained to avoid thinking beyond that paradigm. The response itself has been identity politics, ranging from “this is anti-white” to “this is white genocide” to the promotion of “white identity.” While this is expected from people like Elon Musk (known stoker of any fire that will get him attention) and reactionaries, the very idea identity politics can be fought with identity politics demonstrates that anyone claiming to be a Marxist or materialist on this side of this conflict is lying, primarily to themselves.
"Identity politics" has become a divisive and superficial tool. It promotes the idea that identity is the primary basis for political concern, overshadowing the material realities that create power structures.
Rather than perpetuating divisions based on identity, a more productive approach is recognizing that the struggles of various identity groups are ultimately interconnected and rooted in shared struggle. While the "Kill the boer" chant may evoke strong reactions, its significance should be viewed within its regional historical context.
In this argument, we see yet another reason to come to this conclusion.