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Mantashe, who yesterday took the witness stand in defence of the right to sing Dubula ibhunu and to explain its meaning, said he had identified a problem that showed anything involving Malema attracted unnecessarily negative attention.

Mantashe, under cross-examination from AfriForum counsel Martin Brassey, also warned that any attempt to tamper with liberation history would be like tampering with the feelings of millions of people.

Brassey put it to him that AfriForum and its clients were angered by Malema's continued singing of Dubula ibhunubecause the song was deemed "militant and aggressive".

Brassey said: "Because of his (Malema) standing and the fact that he seems to be a person of power, AfriForum members viewed the song as being highly instructive."

Mantashe retorted, explaining that anti-apartheid fighters understood that boer, or ibhunu, referred to the oppressive apartheid system and not individuals.

Legal counsel for the Transvaal Agricultural Union of SA, which is the second complainant, Roelof du Plessis, dismissed the ANC's claimed ownership of the song and theassertion that it was part of its heritage as "false".

Du Plessis produced documents allegedly proving that the song belonged to the PAC. He said he would use this "fact" as a basis to convince the court to declare the song hate speech.

Mantashe rejected Du Plessis' claim, arguing that liberation songs were shared by many liberation movements. "We didn't get copyrights for liberation songs. We shared them. Any liberation movement would take a song and add their own lyrics to it."

Acclaimed poet and ANC activist Wally Serote urged people to allow Malema to act like a youth.

"A stalwart of the ANC once told me that the youth have a right to say 'I will bang my head against the window pane'," he said.

"We (the adults) must warn them and tell them they will scratch their heads if they do so, so that next time we can say, 'we told you so'. Malema has a right to act like a youth and bang his head against (the window pane)."

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Fri May 24 05:28:44 SAST 2013 ::

Apr 20, 2011

Memme

We are behind you Juju, no matter what.I qoute " Malema has a right to act like a youth and bang his head against (the window pane) "
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Apr 20, 2011

AK1234

AfriForum are a banch of idots really.
I think they are so tjatjarag what are they trying to do by burning the song.
Surely they are mad group of people.
They should leave history alone.
Our kids should know what happened b4 they were born & also know the songs we used to sing without fear.
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Apr 20, 2011

TupacAmaru

I am for Julius on this case...but this story has exhausted my energy big time. *yawn*
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Apr 20, 2011

Naphty

Roets and his Gang must just live SA and go back to Netherland where they originate and stop confusing the masses. I can see Hendriek Verwoed is trying to come back from the grave, Roets is a small boy, we need to stop entertaining him. He knows nothing about Black people and the struggle
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Apr 20, 2011

Mzabalazo

What I view sensible in this issue is one, the song should not be banned by law but the ANC was suppose to do what it did when the late P.Mokaba sang a similar song,call for restrain not to sing the song,if that was possible in Mokaba's time when the NP/NNP was in power and the changes were not implemented why should it be defficult now when the ANC is in power.The banning of the song will fuel the animosity as well as the singing of this song.But when the late P.Mokaba was asked not to sing the song everything went well so it should today. I agree with Hanekom on one issue,that we as a nation should debate about this and hopefully a sensible outcome will come out of it.
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Apr 20, 2011

ibeliv

100% behing MALEMA nomatter what
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Apr 20, 2011

Naphty

They are trying to tell us how to deal with our History, next thing they gonna reintroduce pass law. This Roets boy is out of order, he is a snake, it is gonna grow up one day and kill us( Black)
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Apr 20, 2011

Naphty

Roets is a threat to Blacks people and Afrikaners. We don't need this boy in SA
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Apr 20, 2011

Mellow

Malema is allowed to act like a youth? Haaaaa now that's a joke because he is acting like a 3yr old like some people of course

History is History much appreciated but we shouldn't get stuck in it we need to move on
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Apr 20, 2011

Naphty

He sound like he belongs to the third force, he blames black people on farms murders. He is actually saying Afrikaners should take up guns and start killing Black people because Black people are killing Afrikaners. He is actually trying to spark the fire
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