The ANC and hate speech

For my take on Julius Malema, see my recent blog ('Malema: Clown Prince or Crown Prince'). But a quick comment on 'hate speech' and 'dubula ibhunu' in particular. Anyone who knows anything about language will know that meaning depends to a large extent on context (the speaker, the occasion, the date, the audience). So one cannot 'fix' the meaning of this particular phrase or song. One would also need some understanding of the tradition of struggle out of which this song comes. Recourse to the Dictionary of South African English reveals that the term is not a literal reference to farmers (it can refer to whites generally, to Afrikaners, or specifically to the South African Police of the apartheid era) - but it is clearly derogatory. But does it/can it constitute hate speech?