Politics: U2’s Bono steps into South African “Shoot the Boer” controversy
- When I was a kid and I’d sing songs I remember my uncles singing… rebel songs about the early days of the Irish Republican Army. … We sang this and it’s fair to say it’s folk music.
- U2’s Bono • Defending his support of a South African protest song called “Shoot the Boer,” seen as an attack on white people in South African (“boer” is considered a slur), by noting that the Irish Republican Army had violent protest songs, too! (He sang a couple bars of a violence-promoting Irish “folk song” while talking.) The song is the center of major controversy, with the leader of South Africa’s Youth League, Julius Malema, in a legal fight over whether the song is hate speech or not. Based on the criticism the human-rights figurehead has gotten, it may just be. if it weren’t for the Spider-Man musical, this would be the dumbest thing he’s done lately. source