In his speech to mark the EFF’s fifth birthday at Sisa Dukashe stadium in East London on Saturday, the party’s commander-in-chief Julius Malema spoke out about racism perpetrated by white and Indian people.
“There is no place in South Africa for white supremacists and Indian supremacists,” he said.
Giving evidence of what he sees as Indian people mistreating black people, Malema recounted: “We went to Durban during our fourth anniversary and I visited a factory where Indians were underpaying African people.”
The mention of Indian people may be controversial considering the fact that Malema has been accused of racism towards South Africa’s Indian population before.
At the EFF’s youth celebrations in North West earlier in the year, Malema took to the podium and told a large crowd: “[The] majority of Indians hate Africans, [the] majority of Indians are racist, and we must never be scared to say that they are racist.
READ MORE: Malema to be dragged to court over comments about Indians
“I’m not saying all Indians, I’m saying the majority of them,” he added.
Many came out strongly against his comments at the time, saying that his declaration that Indian people are racist itself constitutes racism.
Malema also had strong words against white racists.
“When I was in East London, I visited a Nestle factory and there is a man there that calls black people monkeys. We went to Nestle and gave them a week to deal decisively with Kobus or else they will have an H&M situation on their hands,” the firebrand politician warned.
While Malema mentioned he has problems with white supremacy, he also extended an olive branch to South Africa’s white population, on one condition – that they give back the land.
“I want to tell the white people that no one is coming against them. I want to make a clarion call to tell they them should give us the land and they shall know peace,” he said.
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