South Africa’s ruling party says ANC leader’s song about killing whites not meant literally

SAfrican top party: Song not about killing whites

JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s governing party says a leading member didn’t mean it literally when he sang about killing whites.

African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema is often in the news for his fiery rhetoric and flashy lifestyle. Tuesday, South African media reported he led University of Johannesburg students in the song, “Shoot the boere, they are rapists.” Boere is farmers in Afrikaans, the language of white South African descendants of early Dutch settlers.

Afrikaners and others accuse Malema of inciting violence against whites. Ishmael Mnisi, an ANC spokesman, told The Associated Press Wednesday the song challenges those who do not want to see change in a society still divided by race.

Mnisi says it is not “a call to kill people.”