Well I’ll be damned! Here’s a South African political controversy that doesn’t involve Julius Malema.
5FM, arguably one of South Africa’s favourite radio stations, was fined R10,000 (a little over US$1,000) for playing a song in which lyrics the word Kaffir occurs. But get this, the song is by a black artist, was played by a black DJ and the complaints were from white people!
The word ‘kaffir’ is the South African equivalent of the American word ‘nigger’. As in America, the taboo-for-other-races word is often used by the black youth. During apartheid this derogatory taunt was the proverbial stick with which white people beat black people, and in the new South Africa, black people use the broken stick any way they want.
And, it seems, some white people felt that by playing this song, they were being beaten with their own broken stick.
Sung by Kwaito legend Arthur Mafokate, the song Kaffir was a huge hit in 1995 and sold nearly 150,000 copies, consequently becoming a dance-floor hit in South Africa. The offending word is often repeated in the lyrics “nee baas, don’t call me a kaffir”. Idiomatically translated it means “no master, don’t call me a kaffir”.
After the song was played on 5FM during DJ Fresh’s drive time show, the Media Watchdog, Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA), apparently received 25 complaints about the song, and reportedly from white people. Hu? The BCCSA said the song “had no place” in South Africa where “political correctness and sensitivity need to be practised”. The station was fined R10,000.
Here’s Arthur Mafokate’s song Kaffir. It’s a seriously low quality version (I reduced it from 7mb to 1mb) – if you like it, buy the album (or write to 5FM and ask them to play it more often).
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My question is why would white people be offended when black people chooses to use this word? Does it open painful wounds? Remind them of the time when they were cruel masters? A time long gone, which will never return?
Unfortunately, as with all this planet’s atrocities, we can’t simply pretend that apartheid never happened. To learn the hard lessons it taught us, and more importantly, to never let it happen again, we have to remember and face it. To hear the word kaffir reminds us whities of what we were, not to say we didn’t change, but it’s a milestone – so we can look back and measure how far we’ve come.
Uncomfortable, yes? Hard lesson, that one.
For an indepth article on the discussion and the usual array of colourful comments at the bottom from equally colourful characters, see what TheTimes.co.za had to say.