SA split on free speech and 'Kill the Boer' - Gareth van Onselen

Key topics81% value free speech, but 82% say it shouldn’t include causing offence53% view "Kill the Boer" as hate speech, driven by minority group views64% believe Ramaphosa should condemn Malema's singing of the song.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..By Gareth van Onselen.The Social Research Foundation (SRF) recently commissioned a short, nationally representative survey on public perceptions around free speech, hate speech and the song Kill the Boer. The survey was conducted by Victory Research (of which I am the CEO). The SRF was kind enough to let me set out the findings. What follows is a summary of the key insights. In setting them out, I will focus more on the ‘what’ than the ‘why’.IntroductionThis was a relatively short survey, and so there is some limit on how many questions could be asked. That said, as far as I am aware, it is the first substantive piece of dedicated research on this subject. That in and of itself is important. For a subject that elicits so much debate, there is precious little data on what people actually think, and hopefully this will help fill something of a vacuum.MethodologySample: 805 South African adults (aged 18 or over).Screening: None (both registered and non-registered voters polled).Weighting: Fully representative of the South African adult population.Questionnaire Length: 10mIn field: 8 through 16 April 2025Margin of Error: 3.5%Confidence Level: 95%DEFF: 1.0759MoE+DEFF: 5.0% Method: Single-frame Random Digit Dialling sampling method.Free speechTo establish some context and as a helpful frame of reference, the survey started with some general questions about free speech and people’s attitudes towards it.Graph 1 (below) sets out how important people personally regard the right to free speech. (As a guide to how these graphics are structured: the finding for the global sample (all respondents) is in the biggest set of numbers, in the middle; the smaller set of numbers in the table at the bottom are some important cross-tabulations – inclusive of registered and non-registered voters; race; gender and the four biggest political parties: ANC, DA, EFF, MK. Blue blocks are some interesting numbers to have a look at, but I won’t address all of them in this analysis.).Encouragingly, free speech is regarded as “very” or “somewhat” important by an overwhelming majority of respondents (81%). Having established its importance, however, the question then becomes what do people mean by free speech? Is there a shared understanding?Graph 2 (below) gave respondents two possible definitions. The first argued that the right to free speech included the choice to offend others; the second, that it did not. People were asked to choose the defintion that most closely aligned with their personal understanding..This is perhaps the first significant finding. An overwhelming majority of respondents (82%) aligned themselves with the second definition: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, but that DOES NOT INCLUDE causing offence to others.”There are no significant statistical breaks with the global trend in the cross-tabulations.Graph 3 (below) takes this interrogation a little further, by asking respondents to think more carefully about the idea of offence and what it entails. They were presented with two opposing ideas and asked to choose which one came closer to their understanding. Statement 1 argued offence must be covered by free speech, or no one would be allowed to say anything. Statement 2 argued that feelings are all important, especially given our history, and free speech must protect feelings..62% of all respondents agreed “very” (47.2%) or “somewhat” (14.6%) with Statement 2. This is interesting, 62% represents a 20pt drop from the number of people who agreed with the idea that free speech did not cover offence (Graph 2). So, faced with a rational explanation of what happens when you legislate for offence – that is, someone will inevitably find whatever is said offensive – a significant number of people changed their position..Read more:.Malema’s “Kill the boer” chant sparks global backlash.EFF supporters interesting on this subject.Hate speechFrom here the survey moved onto hate speech. Graph 4 (below) asked whether respondents agree or disagree with the current legal understanding of hate speech, going by the latest judgements..There is an interesting split here for the first time. 53.4% “somewhat” (10.7%) or “strongly” (42.6%) agree with the definition presented; 46.4% “somewhat” (7.0%) or “strongly” (39.4%) disagree with it. There was very strong agreement with the definition among White (80%) and Coloured (65%) respondents (and DA supporters – 67%), along with significant disagreement level among Black respondents (47%).Graph 5.1. through 5.3. (below) deals with six examples of offensive speech. Respondents were asked to say whether they agreed or disagreed that each example be categorised as hate speech. .There is a generally even split across all examples, among all respondents – in five out of six cases a small majority agreeing that the relevant concept should be categorised as hate speech.There was strong agreement that most should be categorised as hate speech among Coloured and White South Africans. Females were also generally more on board each idea being categorised as hate speech compared to males. And, among the four biggest political parties, the strongest agreement that each term be categorised as hate speech was among EFF supporters.Graph 5.3. is interesting. It combines those respondents who agreed “very” or “somewhat” that each example was hate speech, for Coloured and White respondents, as well as for EFF supporters, and compares them to Black respondents and the score for all respondents. There are substantial differentials between most of them. For example: “Racism”. Among all respondents, 53.6% agreed it should be categorised as hate speech. This was largely driven by White (85.2%) and Coloured (86.6%) minorities, both scores being significantly above Black respondents (44.9%). This trend holds for all examples.Put another way: 44.9% of Black respondents agree racism should be categorised as hate speech, compared to 85.2% of white respondents – almost double, or 40.3pts higher.Graph 6.1. and 6.2. (below) look at how people feel the best way to respond to offense is. They were given six potential responses to being told something highly personally offensive and asked which one of the six best represents the way they would respond to that scenario..Graph 6.2. groups those responses into three categories:Personal Action: (the responses: “To argue back with them” and “To tolerate or ignore them”)Civil Action: (the response: “To pursue them legally through the courts”)Censorship: (the responses “To take steps to get them banned or censored from speaking publicly”; “To approach their employer, if they are employed, to act against them” and “To ask the government or a state institution like the HRC to investigate them”)“To pursue them legally through the courts” is perhaps a bit ambivalent here, it is unknown whether people understood this to mean defamation, or a criminal charge. Given the high score for censorship, it might well be the case that a number of people in this category regard it too as a potentially censorious response. The other categories are not ambivalent.There is a significant appetite for censorship (41.6% among all respondents), and it is particularly high among EFF (50.5%) and MK (58.2%) supporters. A significantly high number of White South Africans chose personal action (56.6%).Kill the BoerMoving onto the song Kill the Boer. Graph 7 (below) establishes who was aware of the song. I have added the Freedom Front + (FF+) to the cross tabulations here, as it is an important constituency on this issue..80% of all respondents were aware of it. 100% of FF+ respondents were aware.For the subsequent graphs, I have included a main reporting line for only those who were aware of the song and although there is no fundamental difference between the two (all respondents and only respondents aware) it is more meaningful to focus only those respondents who are aware of the song, as the “all respondents” group will include 20% of people who don’t really know what they are talking about.Graph 8 (below) seeks to establish people’s personal perception of the song. They were given three options and asked which one came closest to their personal understanding. .25% of those aware of the song said it was essentially harmless (this was driven by 27% of Black respondents, a stark contrast to minorities – 16% of Coloured, 0% of Indian and 1% of White respondents took this position).A majority of respondents (53% of those aware of the song) said it was “clearly hate speech”, a figure driven primarily by minorities (73% of Coloured, 93% of Indian and 85% of White respondents). 50% of Black respondents agreed it was hate speech. MK supporters were the only political group not to have a majority agreeing with this view (37%).Significantly, 57% of EFF supporters identified the song as “clearly hate speech”. A further 26% said singing the song was “irresponsible”. So a total of 83% of EFF supporters felt the song irresponsible or hate speech. That is a remarkable finding.At this point, Julius Malema himself was introduced in the survey and presented as one of the main proponents of the song. Respondents were asked why they think he sings the song. Graph 9 (below) sets out the four options respondents were given. .There was a four-way split among respondents who were aware of the song: 27% saying Malema is just celebrating an old struggle song; 24% that he is being deliberately provocative; 21% that he is using it to protest failed ANC land policies; and, significantly, 22% who believed Malema literally wants people to go out and kill white Afrikaans farmers. Interesting to compare EFF and FF+ supporters on the last category: Just 2% of EFF supporters believe Malema “literally wants people to go out and kill white Afrikaans farmers”, while 80% of FF+ supporters believe this to be Malema’s intent. 13% of black respondents believe this to be Malema’s intent, compared to 47% of Coloured, 48% of Indian and 56% of White respondents. Finally, there are still more interesting differentials between voters (27%) and non-voters (10%), as well as females (29%) and males (18%).Graph 10 (below) is a simple question, designed to gauge whether people believe President Ramaphosa should condemn Malema’s singing of the song (the presidency recently refused to do so)..A strong majority of those aware of the song (64%) believe Ramaphosa should condemn Malema’s singing of the song, including 66% of ANC supporters, 80% of DA supporters, 49% of MK supporters and 100% of FF+ supporters. Significantly, 33% of EFF supporters believe the President should condemn the actions of their own leader.Graph 11 (below) measures whether people believe there is a direct relationship between Malema’s singing of the song and violence carried out against white Afrikaner farmers. .It is important to remember this measures only whether people think there is a link, it does not measure if there actually is a link. That said, there is again a fairly even split, with 49% of those aware of the song thinking there is a relationship and 46% believing there is not.The CourtsThe final few questions deal with the courts, which have found that the song does not constitute hate speech. Graph 12 (below) sets how many people were aware of the court’s position..Again, there is a fairly even split, with a small majority being unaware. High awareness levels, however, are to be found among White respondents (62%) and FF+ supporters (78%)The most recent of these judgments came from the Constitutional Court, which dismissed AfriForum’s appeal against an earlier ruling (which found the song did not constitute hate speech). The final set of graphs (13.1, 13.2 and 13.3 below) deal with the official responses of four political parties or organisations to this judgement (the DA, AfriForum, EFF and ANC).Respondents were not told who made each statement, although you can see who did in the graphs, but asked to simply say whether they agreed or disagreed with the response, in each case..The strongest level of agreement was with the DA’s response (67% agreeing with it “somewhat” or “strongly”), the other three responses all scored around 50%.Among the cross-tabulations, there are a great many insights here, but for the sake of brevity, I will focus only on the EFF. Interestingly 49% of EFF supporters agreed “strongly” with the DA’s response, significantly more than agreed “strongly” with the EFF’s own response (35%) – with which 32% also strongly disagreed.

SA split on free speech and 'Kill the Boer' - Gareth van Onselen

Related Stories

DA Cabinet shake-up, ANC infighting and EFF collapse… | The Electoral Roadshow with Wayne Sussman

Beyond the metros: Where SA's real political battle in November is brewing

Bregret now UK's majority view — so why won't anyone call another Brexit referendum?

ANC faces NMB election collapse, clings to Buffalo City