Bono Slammed for 'Shoot the Boer' Song Stand

Bono is in hot water in South Africa after he appeared to support a song whose lyrics include the line "shoot the Boer." In an interview, the U2 frontman indicated such music is part of political protest and compared it to songs linked to the Irish Republican Army, reports the Telegraph. When "I was a kid I’d sing songs I remember my uncles singing … rebel songs about the early days of the IRA,” he said in the newspaper interview. "This was the struggle of some people that sang it over some time.”

But the Boer song, with lyrics in Zulu, is considered hate speech by many, and a South African pop star has tweeted that he threw his tickets for the upcoming U2 concert into a local river. Bono also conceded such a song could be "incendiary" and that it would be "pretty dumb" to present it in certain communities. "There's a rule for that kind of music," he added, though didn't say specifically what the rule is. Several South Africans are arguing that the anti-apartheid anthem of the '80s should be banned. Debate over the song increased following last year's murder of a white South African farmer.
(More Boer stories.)