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In October the Democratic Alliance (DA) laid charges against the Free State ANC Youth League Chairperson, Thabo Meeko, for hate speech and intimidation with the Equality Court in Cape Town. Meeko was quoted in the press as saying that University of the Free State vice chancellor Professor Jonathan Jansen should be "shot and killed because he is a racist", and that "like President Jacob Zuma when he said the police must meet fire with fire, the shoot-to-kill approach must also apply to all the racists, including Jansen - because he is a racist. He must know that we have removed more powerful people than him before. Jansen is equally a criminal like those four racists." Mr Meeko has now responded with an opposing affidavit (available on request), in which he does three things:
• First, he argues the DA does not have jurisdiction;
• Second, he argues the DA does not have locus standi; and
• Third; he argues that he did not mean ‘shoot to kill' in the sense that it meant actually shooting and killing someone, and that his use of the word ‘approach' proves this.
Meeko's affidavit is about as coherent as his initial statement. Indeed, every one of the three points he raises are easily dismissed:
• First, the DA does have jurisdiction, the Equality Court allows for a complaint to be lodged anywhere in the country and then forwarded to the requisite court. The DA filed its application in close consultation with the Court, in this regard;
• Second, The DA does have locus standi; the Equality Court Act provides for "any person acting as a member or in the interests of a group or class of persons" and "any person acting in the public interest" may file a complaint. In fact, so poorly thought through is Meeko's affidavit, that in self-defeating fashion he cites this very clause in trying to invalidate the DA's complaint; and
• Third, one cannot detach the word approach from the phrase - ‘shoot to kill' - that precedes it. The word approach is dependent on the words that preceded it for meaning, not visa versa. Meeko was saying, in no uncertain terms that a particular kind of approach - the ‘shoot to kill approach' - should apply to Jansen; that is, he should be shot and killed.
Meeko is, of course, entitled to defend himself. But, in choosing not only to deny the legitimacy of the DA's complaint but the very nature of the statement attributed to him, Meeko is actually denying basic common sense. In George Orwell's 1984 the chief protagonist, Winston Smith, works for the Ministry of Truth, which carries outside its headquarters the slogans "War is Peace", "Freedom is Slavery" and "Ignorance is Strength". Meeko's affidavit could well have been produced by that Ministry. It effectively argues that ‘shoot to kill' doesn't mean ‘shoot to kill' and that violent, hate-filled speech is really some kind of positive contribution to public debate. This kind of perverse logic is increasingly coming to define the ANC and its various radical statements. Truth and fiction have merged and even the patently obvious is now denied. The DA has full confidence in the Equality Court on this matter.