A defiant ANC has vowed to push for the continued singing of controversial liberation struggle songs for "generations to come" so that memories of the past can be preserved.

ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe slammed the decision of the Johannesburg High Court to ban the singing of struggle songs with the words "dubula ibhunu" (shoot the Boer).

Judge Leon Halgryn on Friday ruled that the singing of such songs was unconstitutional.

But Mantashe said the party would appeal against the ruling because it had not been given an opportunity by the court to state its case.

The case was brought before the court by Willem Haraamse, a member of the Society for the Defence of the Constitution, against fellow member Mohammed Vowda, who purportedly wanted to sing the song at a march against crime next Friday.

Mantashe said the court's decision was baseless because the applicant and the defendant had made an arrangement before going to court.

"One is an applicant and the other is the defendant. They have predetermined the outcome of the case. They just go there to formalise the outcome and the judge falls into that trap and formalises a predetermined decision of a group that belongs together," Mantashe said.

The ANC leader said that the party would take the Freedom Front Plus to the Equality Court for hate speech because of the right-wing party's newly launched "Prosecute Julius Malema" campaign".

Mantashe said the FF Plus campaigns promoted hatred of the ANC Youth League president. Defending the continued singing of revolutionary-era songs, Mantashe said they would teach future generations about the country's divided past.

"For this nation to be confident about the future, it must be confident about where it comes from. These songs must be sung for many generations to come so many of these generations know exactly where we come from.

"This democracy is a product of a long struggle for liberation. That must never be hidden from younger generations. Any nation that doesn't know where it comes from will never know where it is going," said Mantashe.

He said he personally derived pleasure from such songs because they brought home the message that freedom was not free.

Though Mantashe did not say when the ANC will lodge its appeal, he said the party had consulted its lawyers.

"We don't think this is a normal case. We think it is a constitutional matter. Our view is that we should get a correct constitutional interpretation of the role of freedom songs in the struggle for freedom," he said.

Mantashe said there was no evidence to suggest that the singing of such songs contributed to attacks on farmers, as claimed by the FF Plus.

"Our view is that misinterpretation of the song, in the first instance, was intended to incite fighting in communities. A Boer is not a farmer. To give it a simple interpretation - that it means 'kill the farmer' - is a wrong interpretation intended to incite. We have declared our concern about farm killings, but to incite these communities using these songs is misplaced. It is that misinterpretation that is inciting farming communities, not the song," Mantashe said.

The songs have also been defended by President Jacob Zuma, who yesterday told Afrikaners in Bethlehem, west of Pretoria, that they were part of the country's heritage.

"We must make social cohesion a priority. We must have a discussion on common heritage," he said. - Additional reporting by Nkosana Lekotjolo