Cockroach as Hate Speech

Is Helen Zille a Cockroach?
A question to that effect was apparently asked on Saturday 30 October in Stellenbosch by the president of the ANC Youth League, Julius Malema, talking from the same podium as our President Jacob Zuma. To quite some applause he went on saying that you must bring Doom (insecticide) to remove this cockroach from power. What he said is so remarkable that it should be quoted verbatim: “You have put the cockroach in cabinet. People in Western Cape, we are asking you to bring Doom to remove this cockroach from cabinet. And Doom (means) voting for the ANC.” (Sunday Times 31 October 2010) He then went on criticizing her on certain policy issues. What was said this Saturday is completely unacceptable, a total disgrace and something that is an extreme form of hate speech, for which any person should be taken to court. I will here give the following four comments.
A day like this one is convinced that South Africa is going backwards, that things are bound to get much worse before they are able to get any better. That there has been an ANC initiated reconciliation process for the healing of the nation just a few years ago, one cannot possibly believe. Equally outrageous is the fact that our president was on the same podium when this was said by Malema, and he was clearly not happy and yet he did not intervene in any way. Was this the last chance for us to see him as our leader, a chance that clearly was not taken?
One should not forget what was going on in Rwanda at the same time as the new democracy of South Africa was unfolding, that is April 1994. The Hutus (and here is a long drawn out duel of many years between two groups in one small country, the details of which cannot be mentioned here) had long prepared their assault on the much smaller group the Tutsis. Media were important, not least radio that reached every village and every hut. And the hate speech was there and a key term in this hate speech, which led to modern day genocide in Africa, was just this: cockroach. The radio announced: “kill those cockroaches!” And everybody knew exactly who were meant. It will take a long while before Rwanda can initiate a real reconciliation process, understandably.
Christians say that we are created in the image of God, and therefore holy; others would say that human dignity is inviolable regardless of race, creed, class, gender, ethnic group etc. It was indeed a sad day for the whole of the country and for the whole world that a young leader, who has made himself successfully populist, and yet perpetually imbecile, can get away with such a verbal barrage of abuse against a political opponent of the opposite sex and race.