Most problems – from listeriosis to poor school infrastructure – was a result of landlessness among black people, EFF leader Julius Malema said yesterday as he intensified his rhetoric around land expropriation.
Malema, speaking at his party’s Human Rights Day rally in Ermelo, Mpumalanga, charged that black people in South Africa were still seen as “sub-humans” who had “nothing to celebrate”, until their “full humanity has been recovered”.
“They never wanted to see black people coming together like this,” Malema said, adding that there should be continued unity against “our common enemy”. The enemy, he added, were those “that stole our land and do not want to give it back”.
He also took a stab at the Australian government wanting to fast-track visas for white farmers, who they view as being “under threat” by the call for land expropriation without compensation. This has since been disputed by academics who argue there is no empirical data to support a narrative of swart gevaar.
However, should land owners heed Australia’s call, they should go, Malema said.
“If they want to go to Australia, they must go. They must leave the keys to the tractors and the houses. We want to plough the land and move from shacks into houses, because they never came with houses and land, so they must leave in peace.”
It was only racists who moved to Australia when Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, and in 1994 following democratic elections, he added.
“They are rich here because they are exploiting black people… They will come back here with a tail between their legs… We will hire them.”
Acquiring land also meant that people would no longer be “domestic workers and garden boys”.
He said: “They want to keep you as the girl and garden boys… like their parents. We are asking for what rightfully belongs to us. What is human rights without land? What is human rights in a shack?
“There is no human rights in a shack; there is no human rights without justice; there is no human rights without dignity… Our land is our dignity.
“You are not human beings, you are sub-human.”
Malema, however, denied hating white people. “We do not hate white people… A disagreement is not hatred.”
In pointing to the listeriosis outbreak which has claimed up to 180 lives, and which has been connected to Tiger Brands’ processed food brand Enterprise, the former ANC Youth League leader said being able to farm one’s own chickens would result in healthier eating.
He also referred to the recent death of another school child, who fell into a pit toilet at her school in the Eastern Cape.
“…You will never find white people without water; you will never find white people without a proper sewer system.
“Our people are dying in schools, falling into pit toilets,” he said.
– yadhanaj@citizen.co.za
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