One Settler, One Bullet

One Settler, One Bullet was a rallying cry and slogan originated by the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA), the armed wing of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), during the struggle of the 1980s against apartheid in South Africa. The slogan parodied the African National Congress's slogan 'One Man, One Vote', which eventually became 'One Person, One Vote'. It is not to be confused with the controversial protest song "Dubul' ibhunu" (Shoot the Boer).

History[]

The slogan was never officially endorsed by the PAC but often used by party members during rallies. After the dismantling of apartheid in 1994, PAC officials have repeatedly distanced themselves and the party from the slogan and called it a "war cry from its armed wing" incompatible with its "current reconcillatory stand".^[1]

By 1991, when the fight against apartheid neared its end, in the ideological terminology of the PAC, a settler was defined as a white person participating in the oppression of indigenous people and that did not include all white South Africans. White South Africans whose "sole allegiance was to Africa" were considered part of the African nation and so were excluded from the settler category.^[2]

However, even after 1991, grassroots sympathizers of the PAC at times interpreted the slogan as a call for attacks on whites in general and certain attacks on whites, such as the 1993 killing of US Anti-Apartheid activist Amy Biehl,^[3] were indeed directly motivated by the slogan.^[4]

In 2015, student activist group Rhodes Must Fall and other affiliated movements revived the slogan by chanting "One Settler One Bullet" at rallies at the University of Cape Town and by statements on social media.^[5]

Variants[]

• "Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer" - competing slogan reportedly originated by Peter Mokaba of the ANC at the April 1993 funeral of assassinated South African Communist party leader Chris Hani.^[6]
• "One Merchant, One Bullet" - used by People Against Gangsterism and Drugs, an Islamist vigilante group in post-apartheid South Africa. ("Merchant" refers to drug dealers.)
• "One Prawn, One Bullet" - line spoken by the mercenary character Koobus (who is ironically an Afrikaner himself) of the movie District 9.

References[]