How Can We Kill The People Who Are Feeding Us?’: Julius Malema Says ‘Kill The Boer’ Is Not Meant Literally After Farmer’s Ears Are Cut Off

‘No White Farmer Must Be Killed’: EFF Leader Julius Malema Speaks Out After Ventersdorp Farmer’s Ears Are Sliced Off In Farm Attack

Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema has moved to clarify that the controversial *Kill the Boer* struggle song should never be taken literally, insisting that South Africa’s farmers must be protected.

Addressing voters at Orlando Stadium in Soweto on Saturday, Malema spoke out against the horrific farm attack on 50-year-old Ventersdorp cattle farmer Donovan Marx, who was shot, stabbed, tortured, and had both of his ears cut off earlier in the week.

During the attack on Wednesday, 28 October, three masked gunmen initially overpowered and tied up a farmworker inside a barn before storming the main farmhouse. The attackers confronted Marx, shot him in the back, stabbed him in the leg, beat him, and cut off his ears.

[do_widget id=super_rss_reader-3] –> –> Despite the brutal torture, Marx survived the ordeal and is fighting for his life in hospital. Following a swift investigation, police arrested two suspects on Saturday, who are expected to appear in court on Monday.

Speaking to his supporters in Soweto after years of chanting the controversial struggle song, Malema condemned the attack and called for those who attack farmers to be handed over to the EFF “to deal with them”.

“Comrades, the chant ‘Kill the Farmer, Kill the Boer’ was never meant in a literal sense,” Malema stated.

“We never called for the literal killing of human beings. The killings of our farmers on their farms must stop. What kind of human beings kill through shooting, stabbing and worse, cut off the ears like it happened in Ventersdorp?” he asked.

“We never promote the killing of white farmers or black farmers. How can we kill the people who are feeding us? All of those people who [tortured] that farmer in Ventersdorp must be brought here to Orlando Stadium. We want to teach them a lesson because the police have failed them,” Malema said.

He also warned that farm attacks severely damage South Africa’s international standing.

“The continuation of this nonsense of killing white farmers feeds into the wrong narrative that there is a white genocide in South Africa, which is absolute nonsense and does damage to the good image of our beautiful country. It must stop, and it must stop now. No white farmer must be killed, no black farmer must be killed, no woman must be killed, no one must be killed. South Africa must be a peaceful place for all to live in,” he added.

Years of court battles over ‘Dubul’ ibhunu’

The *Dubul’ ibhunu* (*Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer*) chant has been at the centre of a lengthy legal campaign, largely spearheaded by lobby group AfriForum, to have the song declared hate speech and banned from public performance.

In 2011, AfriForum took Malema—who was then the president of the ANC Youth League—to the Equality Court. Judge Collin Lamont found Malema guilty of hate speech after AfriForum argued the song was hurtful and incited harm against white Afrikaners and farmers.

At the time, the court ruled that while the song may have been acceptable during the struggle against apartheid, it was no longer acceptable in post-apartheid South Africa. The judge found the words to be derogatory and dehumanising, declared the song hate speech, interdicted Malema and the ANC from singing it at public or private meetings, and ordered Malema to pay legal costs.

In 2020, AfriForum launched a fresh Equality Court complaint after Malema and former EFF MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi chanted the song at an EFF event in Senekal. The group sought to have both *Kill the Boer* and another EFF song, *Bizani iFire-Brigade* (*Call the fire brigade*), declared hate speech, while demanding apologies and a R500,000 payment to charity.

However, in August 2022, Judge Edwin Molahlehi dismissed AfriForum’s application, ruling that the organisation had failed to prove the lyrics showed “a clear intention to harm, incite harm, or propagate hatred.” Molahlehi noted that the song’s meaning “has to be located within the political context within which they are sung,” adding that it expressed frustration with the ANC’s post-1994 performance and formed part of political dialogue around land reform and radical economic transformation.

Although AfriForum was granted leave to appeal in October 2022, the Supreme Court of Appeal upheld the Equality Court’s ruling in 2024. The appellate court reasoned that a reasonably well-informed person would understand *Dubul’ ibhunu* as a liberation struggle protest song, and that neither the lyrics nor the accompanying shooting gesture were meant literally or as a call to violence.

In March 2025, the Constitutional Court refused AfriForum leave to appeal after concluding that the application had no reasonable prospects of success, leaving the rulings that the song does not constitute hate speech firmly in place.

Malema previously defended singing the chant in August 2023, arguing that “Boers” and “farmers” referred to a system of oppression rather than individual people—a framing he said served as political education to remind young people of apartheid history and encourage political participation.

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