S'Thembiso Msomi: We have songs for every occasion. Weddings, funerals, worship, the birth of a child; you name it.

Our struggle to overthrow the yoke of racist oppression was no exception. We had them aplenty, the freedom songs, from deeply religious hymns such as Nkosi Sikelel'Afrika to the riotous Kill the boer, Kill the farmer chant.

Each of them represented a phase in our long, and often bloody, march to nationhood.

In response to the 1913 Land Act, our forebears sang along to Reuben T Caluza's protest hymn - Umthetho we Land Act.

Between 1914 and 1942 - an era dominated by deputations and petitions to the British Crown - the songs were no more than prayers to the Empire for limited political rights. But, by the early 1950s, as the defiance campaign took centre stage, the mood had changed drastically. No longer were mournful ditties like Senzeni na? [What have we done?] dominant features at mass political rallies. Militant numbers like Vuyisile Mini's Izakunyathe'iAfrika [Africa is going to trample on you, Verwoerd] were the most preferred. And then came the armed struggle with its toyi-toyi and songs of war.

Ours is not the only revolution with a rich discography: the relationship between song and political upheaval dates as far back as the French Revolution.

It was then that Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle composed La Marseillaise, a very violent song that became so popular with the insurrectionists that they proclaimed it the French national anthem by 1795. It was banned by subsequent regimes but restored as the national anthem in 1879.

At the start of each of its three games at the soccer World Cup in June, the French national team will (I hope) sing the anthem. Here is a sample of what the players will be singing:

"They come right to our arms/ To slit the throats of our sons, our friends!

"Grab your weapons, citizens!/ Form your battalions!/ Let us march! Let us march!/ May impure blood water our fields!

Hate speech? What about:

"Bear or hold back your blows .../ But not these bloodthirsty despots/ But not these accomplices of Bouillé/ All of these animals who, without pity, Tear their mother's breast to pieces!"

But at the end of each rendition, the whole world would applaud and not a murmur of protest would be heard.

Here at home, Julius Malema's singing of Ayesaba amagwala [The cowards are afraid] has renewed public controversy over the continued use of insurrectionary songs and slogans by the ruling party and its allies.

This song, like any others with a similar message, has its origins in the ANC's military camps, which were scattered over what used to be known as the front-line states.

The particular lyrics that sparked the outcry go something like this:

"Shoot the Boer, shoot the killer/ Shoot the Boer/ Shoot the racist".

The ANC dismisses the outrage over the song as being "oversensitive" and denies that it amounts to hate speech.

Party secretary-general Gwede Mantashe argues that banning the use of such songs would amount to an important part of the liberation struggle's history being "erased".

There is some merit to his proposition that when militants sang about Amabhunu [Boers], they were "not talking about whites" but "the system" of oppression.

Cast your mind back to the mid-1970s, if you would. One of the most popular chants of that era, I am told, was: Samora Machel, Anyile amabhunu [Samora Machel, the Boers shat themselves!]

The slogan was in celebration of the 1974 Mozambican revolution victory against the Portuguese colonialists - not the South African Afrikaners.

Be that as it may, the fact is that these songs are hurtful to a segment of our population and do untold harm to the nation-building project started in 1994.

The French can sing La Marseillaise because the feudalists were emphatically defeated and driven out of France.

That was not the case here.

In his latest novel, Black Diamonds, renowned writer Zakes Mda wonders, through one of his characters, why our post-apartheid rulers are "so enamoured of military vocabulary".

"... perhaps it is compensation for the fact that the actual war itself was a limited one, and the liberation movement was denied the glory of an outright military victory," Mda writes.

Post-independence theorists have also argued that, on realising its inability to deliver on the needs of the populace, the post-colonial rulers often resort to militant rhetoric as a political tool - think Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe.

Sure, freedom songs should continue to be sung. But there is a rich repertoire of songs that could be chosen that are no threat to non-racialism.

If there is a lesson to be learned from the slogans and chants of the South African revolution, it is that each song spoke to the realities and demands of the time.

Now is the time for nation-building, and the songs we sing should not undermine that objective.

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