Displays of the apartheid flag are a rejection of history as it is, and express a desire for black people to be relegated to labour reserves, a pining for the killing, the torture, the abductions, melancholia for the inhumane treatment of black people, the death squads, the curfews and the horrific atrocities committed under the flag.

There are no genuine or sincere reasons not to have the flag declared hate speech that do not seriously undermine the trauma this country is negotiating.

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