EFF celebrates Heritage Day by calling for removal of Die Stem, adoption of Swahili

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) used Heritage Day as an opportunity to campaign for some of their favourite causes on Monday morning.

Foremost was the land issue, with the party releasing a statement, expressing their desire to”reiterate our call for the return of the land through the amendment of our constitution to allow expropriation without compensation.”

The party also brought up other issues, such as their longterm goal of having Die Stem removed from the South African national anthem and their more recent goal of getting South Africans to embrace Kiswahili as a shared African language.

In a video clip shared recently and taken from an EFF media briefing from last month, EFF leader Julius Malema can be seen calling for the continent of Africa to develop a shared language.

The Citizen reported last week Malema now feels vindicated by government’s recent decision to offer Kiswahili in the school curriculum.

Malema had earlier suggested that Kiswahili would be a good choice. The language best known by most of us as providing the title catch phrase to the “Hakuna Matata” song from The Lion King is already widely spoken throughout the continent and will be available in the South African school curriculum from 2020 as an optional subject.

READ MORE: Malema wants all of us to speak Swahili

While his embracing Kiswahili is fairly recent, Malema’s goal to have Die Stem removed from our anthem has been publicly known for some time

Last year, Malema explained that this had been the song that those oppressing black people had sung while ruling South Africa under apartheid.

Particularly the Afrikaans community has been vocal in saying they would not like to see this part of the anthem dropped, which follows the singing of Nkosi Sikilel’ iAfrika.

WATCH: Why Julius Malema hates ‘Die Stem’ so much

In the interview, Malema spoke passionately against Die Stem being part of the national anthem and the fact that the lyrics were in Afrikaans.

“They [the ANC] want us to sing using the language of the oppressor. They want us to sing the song they were singing in Vlakplaas when they were torturing and killing our people, making the same people who survived the torture and prison to sing the same song that was sung during their torture.

“Why do you want to perpetuate the traumatic situation of black people like that? As if you don’t understand the pain of where our people come from.”

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