National anthems are songs of collective pride but South Africa cannot be proud of its anthem so long as Die Stem remains part of it, the EFF said on Thursday.
“Die Stem is a heritage of oppression and indignity. It is a song of oppressors, racists and mass murderers,” Economic Freedom Fighters’ spokesperson, Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, said in a statement.
Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika should be sung the way it was during colonial and apartheid years.
The EFF questioned how Heritage Day could be celebrated without the “land question” having been resolved. People were still living like visitors in the land of their birth, Ndlozi said.
Land was the foundation of human dignity, without which all culture and art existed in “perpetual shame”. “Only the expropriation of land without compensation for equal redistribution will give our people dignity and guarantee their freedom into the future, in particular cultural and artistic freedoms,” Ndlozi said.
The EFF wanted colonial symbols and statues, such as those of Louis Botha, the first prime minister of the Union of South Africa, and Britain’s Queen Victoria, to be removed.
The Kruger National Park should also be renamed. The EFF said Paul Kruger was a colonial racist who “engineered and presided over the Boer Republic that was a foundation for apartheid systems”.
Source: News24
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