Towards Economic Revolution, Democracy and True Independence In United Africa — Julius Malema

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[From The Archives]

Julius Malema on the floors of South African Parliament. Photo-YouTube
 
Excerpts from Julius Malema’s November 26,  2015 comments at Oxford University
 

We want to create a society where all of us exist as human beings and not as White and Black. We want to restore the dignity of the African continent and position Africa as an equal partner in the world economy and international politics.

 

We want Africa to be like Europe. We don’t want Europe to treat Africa like it is it’s own subject. Africa’s time is now. No one should continue with the exploitation of our minerals without our involvement. Not even China will be allowed to recolonize Africa.

We are called Economic Freedom Fighters because we want any foreign direct investment to come and invest in Africa through our own terms and to the benefit of the people of Africa.

 
It might be a dream. Some might think it’s not real.

But we know we are going to achieve it. Because this dream is not just a dream by the generational mission; as a generational mission we are not prepared to sell out. We want to restore the dignity of African people. We want to ensure that African people are equal partners in trade, in politics, in every subject that the world is debating.

 

We want to follow in the footsteps of Nelson Mandela. Because Nelson Mandela when he left his term as a president, he said the struggle continues. He said so because he knew political freedom without economic freedom is incomplete.

People cannot eat their cross. People want to put bread on the table. So like many African leaders we are committed not to betray the dreams of those who came before us.

 
Like many African leaders we want to unite the people of Africa to have a common agenda and common purpose.

We want Africa to unite and Africa to reclaim its land and its resources. The EFF speaks of expropriation of land without compensation because we know that when the land was taken in Africa it was through genocide. Why would we reward genocide? 

 
We cannot reward genocide. But we want land because land guarantees us of the sovereignty of South Africa and the African continent.

We cannot claim to be Africans yet we have nothing to show as proof that are indeed Africans because we do not even have title deeds to prove that we are the owners of the land. We have nothing to show. 

 
When you go into mines, it’s multinational companies. When you go into banks, it’s multinational companies. When you go into monopoly industries it’s multinational companies.

We cannot even own and protect our own agricultural sector with our fertile land in Africa because Europe and the entire developed countries use Africa and South Africa as a dumping site. Every lower-grade food gets to be dumped in our countries undermining our own agriculture.

 

When we say those things we are called communists, we are called anarchists, we are called radicals because we must continue to bow before White Supremacy. We are refusing that. We are refusing to bow before imperialism and colonialism. We want total control of our own country and our own land. We in South Africa, Black and White, we co-exist as people. When we fight colonialism we do not fight White people.

We come from a bad history of apartheid where White people have exploited us for far too long, yet we have extended a hand of friendship. There are many others who are still refusing and still wanting to act as if we live in the apartheid era. Those do not deserve to live amongst those who want a United South Africa, Black and White. It is of their own problem. 

 

We are not going to be an international home of racists. We are not going to be an international capital city of racism. We refuse that Black people must still bow before White people and that does not mean you must go away. We are going to reverse the legacy of apartheid through robust engagement and not through pretentious arrangement. We are still hated. We are seeing people dying before us. 

 

We have seen many, many children killed by apartheid regime yet we came out and said we remain brothers. But there are those who are refusing to show remorse and wanting to perpetuate that which happened during apartheid time.

We owe no one no apology when we say South Africa is no home of racists and racism must be fought everywhere including here in Oxford. It must be fought everywhere else, in New York, where Black people get to be shot at by police and we see no serious action. 

 
We want a world which recognizes human beings and not color. It starts with me. It starts with me.

Particularly if you are White you need to stand up and say ‘not in my name.’ We are a new generation. We need to usher in a non-racial international society. Racism has got no place, where democracy, prosperity, has to take place. 

 

South Africa we want to lead by example, in the same way we led by example and accepted that the colonizer and the colonized must share territory. Even beyond the defeat of the colonizer we did not seek to pay revenge we continued to share territory with those who colonized us because we believe strongly that there is a place for everyone in South Africa.

 

But let us transform the economy to benefit all. We cannot protect White privilege at the expense of the majority of African people in South Africa and the whole entire African continent. We are hated for saying that. We are hated for demanding that we must all be treated as equals.

We would rather die for a dream that is going to be realized by many generations after us even if we don’t realize it ourselves. We have made a commitment to lay a firm foundation for generations to come. 

 
We seek to inspire confidence among many, many African masses that they must stand on their own. In this day and era you still have a situation where there are African states paying colonial tax to France. France, it is what it is because of those African states. You have the reserve banks of African states in France and not in Africa itself? And we must accept that and say it is acceptable, it is in the interest of Africa? It is not. 
 

We want Africans to have control over their own currency. Once Africans have control over their own economy and what constitutes their own economy.  Our struggle seeks to inspire. Our struggle seeks to inspire accountable African leaders not dictators, not unaccountable leadership that turns a public purse into a personal purse.

Some leaders in Africa when you ask them for money they go and fetch from a Reserve Bank and give it to you because they treat a Reserve Bank as a personal bank account. It can’t be. We want leaders who are responsible. We want leaders who are accountable.

We want leaders who will go to elections and be elected through democratic means. Let people determine their own leadership and not because leaders are torturing them and intimidating them and imposing themselves on the people. 

 
We were happy when South Africa became one of the last liberated country because we thought we would learn from many failed African states and not repeat similar mistakes. But it looks like we are traveling in the same direction that was traveled by failed African states.

In the whole of Africa, I met some of the students earlier, some are doing research in Africa. You must go and check the facts; in every failed state it became so, because of an individual called the President. The President takes over the country and everything gets to be designed around the individual called the President. 

 
They move from a democratic rule to personal rule. They respect the individual more than the state institutions.

If a president does not like a red beret, a law is passed that all red berets are banned in this country. If the president in South Africa does not like a corruption-fighting institution called Scorpions, they go and close down that Scorpions so that he can steal more than 250 million Rands, I don’t know what that is that in pounds.  Because he doesn’t want to to prison.

Every institution that wants to take him to prison for corruption, he destroys that institution. The Scorpions, he closed it down because that was going to cause him problems. 

 
Now we’ve got a beautiful lady called a Public Protector fighting corruption, the president is after her. Because anyone fighting corruption in South Africa is the enemy of the president; and if that president is left alone, South Africa will become one of the failed African states. 
 

Not under our watch. The EFF has arrived. The EFF is going to protect the sovereignty and the democracy of South Africa. The EFF is going to revive correct politics in Africa and position Africa at a correct path in the international politics. 

 
It is possible.

We have taken that position and many in Africa are willing to follow. 

 
 
 

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