Ian Cameron and Alec Hogg during the question and answer session. (Photo: Tania Heyns/Maroela Media)
“‘Kill the Boer’ is hate speech. There is no doubt.”
This is how Ian Cameron, a DA MP and chairman of the parliamentary committee on police, repeated this week at the online business newspaper BizNews’ conference in Hermanus shortly after Brent Bozell, the US ambassador to South Africa, insisted at this conference that chanting is hate speech and was then reprimanded by the government for it.
Cameron’s statement was met with loud applause from the audience.
“We will continue to say this. We cannot allow ourselves to sell our souls for pure political correctness,” Cameron said during a question-and-answer session at the conference.
“‘Kill the farmer’ is hate speech. It is unacceptable and must never be said or sung.”
However, Cameron does not think there is a genocide happening in South Africa.
“But there is a significant onslaught on farmers,” he emphasized. “In fact, it is the only profession that is sung about killing and then glorified on social media when killing is done.
“This is the only profession that is literally politically targeted.”
Ian Cameron and Alec Hogg during the question and answer session. (Photo: Tania Heyns/Maroela Media)
Cameron also referred to the brutality that often accompanies farm attacks. “It’s something you don’t see in any other crime,” he explained.
“The only other place where I have personally been exposed to extreme violence (as in the case of numerous farm attacks) is intimidation crimes by gangs on the Cape Flats.”
Alec Hogg, founder of BizNews, wanted to know from Cameron why there is so much resistance to making farm attacks a priority crime.
“I don’t think it fits the political narrative. It’s that simple,” Cameron replied.
“When you talk internally to senior police commanders about farm attacks, there is no doubt that they recognize the problem,” Cameron explained.
“Over the past ten years, I have never had a conversation with a professional police member who denied that there is a problem with rural security.”
Cameron believes that unfortunately there is a perception that all victims of farm attacks are white – and this is simply not the case.
“There is this racial obsession and the perception that when someone is attacked, it has to be a white farmer. The day they (attackers) pour boiling water over someone because they want access to his safe, I don’t care what race you are. It’s absolutely terrible that this has to happen to anyone. It can never be okay.”
Ian Cameron during the question and answer session. (Photo: Tania Heyns/Maroela Media)