A steady, inevitable march of drums accompanied by soft but ominous electric guitar closed in on the audience like a tiger on the prowl, finally pouncing with low power chords and growling vocals.
You cannot ban Me / The walls and bars, they cannot hold Me in / I am no prisoner, not to your policies, your prejudice, your sin / You cannot silence Me; there is no respect of persons in My eyes / But I tell you this: if you live by the sword, by the sword you shall die
Lion, lion, you lay down with the lamb / Or you'll lie on, lie on, and the end will be at hand / You sow mercy, then mercy you shall reap / You sow pain, then pain you will receive / In the rubble of shanties in your land, South African
Listeners jumped a little in their seats, spooked. Where was this going...?
You look for justice, then you will seek for Me / To know compassion, you must know My name / For forgiveness, you must face your shame / Die to live again, ohhh
Lion, lion, you lay down with the lamb / Or you'll lie on, lie on, and the end will be at hand, oh / You sow mercy, then mercy you shall reap / You sow pain, then pain you shall receive / In the rubble of shanties in your land, South African
Listeners squirmed. It was getting kind of hot in here...
African / South African... / South Africaaan... / South AfricaaaAAANN!
Involuntarily listeners recoiled, squeezing their eyes shut and recalling tense moments in childhood when angry parents had repeatedly addressed them with rising voices, using their full names for added emphasis. The strident guitar that followed hit their ears like a rattan cane on the bottom. By the end of the bridge, they were seeing stars.
You cannot ban Me / The walls and the bars, they cannot hold Me in / I am no prisoner, not to your policies, your prejudice, your sin / You cannot silence Me; there is no respect of persons in My eyes / But I tell you this: if you live by the sword, by the sword then you shall die
You sow mercy, then mercy you shall reap / You sow love, then love you shall receive / Fear Me greatest, for I fear no man / South African
...
Mercy... / You sow mercy... / You sow mercy... / South Africaaaaaannn...
Eyes shifted warily toward the speakers, silently asking why this musical assault had been launched. After letting the tension hang for just a few seconds longer, Sophia activated her mic.
"I may not be a mind reader, but I am guessing this wasn't quite as fun to listen to as what I opened with last week. You're probably wondering what I'm up to now, and not without some reason. After last week's reversal, you're suspicious...maybe even a little hopeful. Will this be a Phoenix Wright-style segment? Bitter as defeat on top but sweet as victory on the bottom? I wish I could give an unqualified yes, but I would be lying if I did. The truthful answer to this question is a tragic mixture of yes and no.
Glenn Kaiser wrote this song with the Boers in mind: white South Africans of primarily Dutch descent. This, after all, was the dusk of Apartheid. We were famously upset about it and to the extent that we were aware of polemics like this one, we embraced them wholeheartedly. They tasted like revenge and we couldn't get enough of them. Steve Taylor was similarly active one year prior, writing 'We Don't Need No Colour Code' against Bob Jones University and referencing Apartheid while he did so.
It was quite the hip thing to do, crusading against Apartheid. Practically everyone was onboard and we most of all, for obvious reasons. But something happened between then and now that changed our experience of these lyrics. Power changed hands, time elapsed, and now the very words that used to make us happy and warm inside frighten us instead, turning our organs into ice."
Listeners cringed. It would have been one thing to have something written directly against modern South Africa, which could be written off easily enough as the rantings of a hater, but to find oneself on the business end of one's own weapon...that was devastating.
"Dear old Glenn didn't mean for his lyrics to cut this way, bless his lily-white heart, but in true prophetic fashion, his words have outlived him and boomeranged right back to us, hitting even harder than before. That often happens when you echo the Almighty. Divine speech cuts across time and ignores racial biases. As it says in the song, 'Fear Me greatest, for I fear no man, South African.' Knowing what was said to the white Afrikaners, what does that portend for us? What did our brothers do when they came to power? Did they sow mercy, or did they sow pain?
Under ANC and EFF rule, South Africa became obsessed with the collection of debts, and it picked up our affection along the way, filling the vacuum that China left behind. Expropriation of land without compensation. Racial favoritism. Redistribution of wealth. Revenge, revenge, revenge. Everything we should be avoiding, multiplied to the third power, and that is precisely what we like about them. Apparently, the third time's the charm.
I cannot say with any authority whether Glenn or Steve knew what I'm about to tell you, but for their sakes I hope that they didn't because there was something evil going on with the 'good guys' in this story that ought to have given them some pause."
Shoulders stiffened and faces hardened, bracing for impact.
"There was a song circulating among opponents of Apartheid for which the only proper adjective is 'vile'. Singing it on the way to power from a position of oppression, while still morally sketchy, is also understandable, but for continuing to use it long after gaining power and promising reconciliation there is absolutely no excuse. What was the song?
Ayasab' amagwala / Dubula, dubula / Ziyarapa lezinja / Dubula, dubula / Aw, dubul' ibhunu!"
Eyes twitched shut and torsos curled inward, each "dubula" hitting like a body blow.
"The song actually goes a bit longer than this, but these are most of the intelligible words, repetition being a key feature. As you can hear from my sample, the word 'dubula' is the glue that holds it all together. When the song is sung at full length, this word is uttered ninety times. That being the case, the question arises: what does 'dubula' mean? As it turns out, the answer is really very simple: it means 'shoot' as in 'discharge a firearm'. Simply put, the song calls the Boers dogs, rapists, and cowards, and orders the hearer to shoot them not once, not twice, but ninety times."
Jaws dropped. Ninety times?
"Also of interest to us is the fact that this song was not merely sung but performed, with the singers pretending to fire Kalashnikov rifles. Yes, you heard correctly: Kalashnikov rifles. As you may have already inferred from the name, Kalashnikov rifles were Soviet weapons. More Russian influence."
Eyebrows shot up. Just when listeners thought they had heard the worst of it, there it was: Russia. Again. Was there no getting away from it?
"'Dubul' ibhunu', literally 'Shoot the Boer', was flagged as hate speech in 2011, but that decision was later overturned. The simple song, built almost entirely around the word 'dubula', was not supposed to be taken literally, the logic went, so 'shoot the Boer' didn't actually mean 'shoot the Boer'. But I am less interested in what the courts said about speech than I am in what Jesus said about it. So, what did He have to say about speech? He said:
'A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.'
Therefore, if a man uses his mouth to speak murder, that's because his heart is full of murder."
Hands shot up in gestures of warding. Whoa whoa whoa... Wasn't Jesus a socialist? Didn't He understand justice and its necessities? Did He not chase the moneychangers out of the temple with a whip? If this quote was genuine and the interpretation correct, this was going to get a lot worse...
"Speaking death once is bad enough, speech being just the tip of the spiritual iceberg, so now imagine what it must take to speak death ninety times in less than ten minutes, then consider the right to keep doing so ad infinitum valuable enough to be worth fighting over in court. Foremost among that number is a man whose face and beret we have immortalized on posters, shirts, and of course memes by the truckload: Julius Malema.
In addition to duking it out in court for the right to keep using 'shoot the Boer' as a rallying cry, he offered the cute comment that 'we are not calling for the slaughter of white people, at least for now.' Nevermind what we're literally saying; we don't mean it...at least for now."
Listeners groaned. Every instinct screamed for a defense of Malema and his wit, but that was going to be an awfully hard mission to accomplish in this context.
"History has a lot to say about this kind of thing and none of it is good. Russia, China, Cambodia, Haiti, and Zimbabwe, to name just a few, all followed some variation of this political recipe and all of them paid a heavy price for it. Live by the sword, die by the sword. The question bears asking: What exactly is a Boer? 'Boer' is the Afrikaans word for 'farmer', so 'shoot the Boer' can be literally understood to mean 'shoot the farmer'. Malema knew this, using 'Boer' and 'farmer' interchangeably. What happens when you shoot the farmer? You starve."
Shoulders slumped, breath hissing out of deflated lungs. Nevermind "hard". Defending Malema and his song at this point would be impossible.
"A fearsome harvest of wrath awaits us, biding its time just like Malema in his cute little comment, until the time is right and it hits us like lightning. Our hair is standing up. If we wish to avoid electrocution, we must move out from under the path of the bolt. Quickly. There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. More on that next week."
An unsettling chill ran up listeners' spines. That teaser was pure nightmare fuel. Never before had the phrase "y'all ain't ready for that conversation" been this horrifyingly apt.
"In the meantime, as we conclude for today, I would have you remember one more thing Jesus said about speech. Listen closely:
'But I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.'
Every word we have spoken, every thought we have had, the messengers of heaven have witnessed. Not a single word goes unheard. The Lord is merciful, but in order to partake of His mercy, we must earnestly seek it. Every word we have used or embraced that we don't want used against us later, we must renounce. He might not have known it, but Don Francisco had our number. We ignore him at our peril."
Ominous piano notes descended on aching ears, giving sonic form to the growing alarm within listeners' heads.
I brought your fathers out of bondage / To the richness of this land / And they knew and praised the One / Who gave them everything they had / But now their children's children's children / Take their lives into their hands / They put their faith in flesh and blood / And hope in wind and sand
But the messengers of heaven now / Are moving through the land / And everything that's said and done / They see and understand / And if one man in a thousand / Can be found to follow Me / Then for the sake of only one / I'll let the others be
You worship what your hands have made / In gold and steel and stone / As if your souls could be contained / By all the things you own
Listeners winced. Men looked at their shoes, women looked at their handbags; both looked at their jewelry.
And you praise Me with your lips alone / And bury love inside / Your hardened hearts that beat for lust / Cannot feel for pride...
Listeners shuddered, each one remembering ecstatic church services in which much sound was made but nothing substantial was said, followed by weekdays brimming with carnality. Wall-to-wall pleasure and indulgence, interrupted only by an all-consuming anger at amorphous people groups and biases beyond their control. When the bridge hit, with its climactic notes, it nearly drove them insane with panic.
The prophet in the marketplace / Speaks strange and different tongues / And he cries aloud to every man / "The judgment has begun!" / But if you'll just believe his word / And turn from all your sin / I'll heal your land of all its hurts / And bless you once again
And the messengers of heaven now / Are moving through the land / And everything that's said and done / They see and understand / And if one man in a thousand / Can be found to follow Me / Then for the sake of only one / I'll let the others be...
As the music tapered and the shock wore off, opinion was divided. Half were genuinely moved and concerned; half were determined to find holes in her arguments and avenge themselves upon her somehow. One thing still united them: a desire to hear what she would say next, albeit for opposing reasons.
Behind the now-dead mic, Sophia let out a heavy sigh, having subconsciously held her breath for much of the closing song. She could feel the tension building, having anticipated it going in. The powers that be wouldn't tolerate much more of this. Not willingly. And though there might be some who hearkened, many who used to adore her would hate her now. She closed her eyes, head bowed. A tear hit the soundboard.