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Artist News
Bono joins protest song debate in South Africa
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 14 February 2011
Bono has ploughed into a political debate in South Africa over the rights and wrongs of singing a protest song dating from the country’s apartheid era which includes the line “shoot the boer” – ‘boer’ being the Dutch and Afrikaans word for farmer, but which was, of course, often used as a derogatory term for all white people, and especially those of Dutch descent, who live in the African country.
The head of the youth wing of South Africa’s African National Congress party, Julius Malema, was criticised last year for singing the song, called ‘Ayasab’ Amagwala’. But in an interview ahead of a gig in Johannesburg this weekend, Bono said he felt it was OK for people to sing old protest songs in the right context, including those with inflammatory lines relating to old political conflicts, because they become simple folk songs for a once suppressed part of the population. He seemingly equated ‘Ayasab’ Amagwala’ with Irish folk songs he sang as a child which glorified the early days of the IRA.
Bono told South Africa’s Sunday Times: “[When] I was a kid I’d sing songs I remembered my uncles singing … rebel songs about the early days of the Irish Republican Army. We sang this and it’s fair to say it’s folk music … as this was the struggle of some people that sang it over some time”. However, he conceded that there was a time and a place for singing such songs, adding: “Would you want to sing that in a certain community? It’s pretty dumb. It’s about where and when you sing those songs. There’s a rule for that kind of music”.
The comments caused outrage among some parts of South Africa’s white community, with one Afrikaans musician, Steve Hofmeyr, announcing on Twitter he’d thrown over £400 worth of tickets to the U2 gig into a river in protest. Though the boss of a Johannesburg radio station which had aired several angry comments from listeners about Bono’s remarks, later told the Daily Telegraph that the outrage had quickly died down and that most realised that the U2 man’s comments were about protest songs in general rather than the ongoing debate in South Africa about ‘Ayasab’ Amagwala’.
Talk Radio 702’s Sheldon Marais said: “Anytime you mention this song, you are guaranteed to stir things up. There was a lot of discussion about this, a lot of anger from call-ins. [But] it has died down during the day, and I think people realised he [Bono] was not endorsing Malema and this song, just talking about protest songs in general”.
It’s not the first political debate to spin off from U2’s current South African tour. A union representing mainly black roadies and technical staff were threatening to picket the band’s show yesterday over claims many live music promoters in the country hire white staff by default. The union didn’t have a problem with the band itself, in fact the aim of the protest, organisers said, was to raise Bono et al’s awareness of the alleged issue, presumably to win some high profile supporters in the music business. Though the company which has organised backstage staff for the U2 gig, Gearhouse Group, insists that half of the technicians it hires are black.
