Julius Malema
54 quotes
Biography
Julius Sello Malema is a South African politician. He is the founder and leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a communist and black nationalist political party since 2013.
"We are worse [off] than we were during the times of apartheid. We are being killed by our own people. We are being oppressed by our own government. … Every mine has a politician inside. They give them money every month, they call it shares. But it is a protection fee to protect whites against the workers."
"Absolutely, what we need to do is that companies must just surrender 51%. ... They have exploited the wealth of that country [South Africa] for far too long. It is time that the people are now beginning to benefit. Our people don't have money to buy those shares, and they will never have money to buy those shares. ... Under president Mbeki they had 2/3 majority, they could have done anything they wanted. Till today they have not done anything. ... because the ANC did not want to tamper with the economic structure and ... property ownership ... We are going to engage in a very persuasive, peaceful engagement with capital. ... We are meeting captains of the industry. Some of them are beginning to respond to our memorandum. Some are saying, well these are doable proposals. ... We'll not use that [civil disobedience] until that our people are pushed to the limit. ... These people are prepared to give shares to the black elite who are politically connected. ... why not give it to the workers themselves who are ... making this company ... what it is."
"There is nothing wrong with crushing white supremacy. It is wrong to think you’re superior to others on the basis of the colour of your skin ... and what perpetuates that is the economic exclusion of our people. ... If we can’t find the necessary skill‚ let’s go and fetch the old man. ‘Old man‚ you are coming to mentor this young one to produce the best product’ to build a better SA."
"Zuma is standing between us and our enemy. Move out of the way. Zuma must pave the way because they [whites] are the one who stole our land. ... White people are going to return our land the same way Zuma will return our money. White people must never think we have abandoned the land question. We will never abandon it. We are the land, our identity is our land. We are nothing without our land. ... What we do with it is none of your business. Solomon Mahlangu died for this land."
"Zuma ... stands in the way towards acquiring land for our people. That is why we will continue attacking him, ... We are at war with whites who took our land and we now want it back. We want our land and we want our wealth; if you stand in our way we will crush you, ..."
"So black people, you are subjects of white people. Even under ANC, even under the so-called democracy, you are subject, you are servant of white people. No white man will be served by me. I do not serve white masters. ... I am here to disturb the white man's peace. ... The white man has been too comfortable for too long. We are here unashamedly to disturb the white man's peace, because we have never known peace. We don't know what peace looks like. ... They have been swimming in a pool of privilege. They have been enjoying themselves because they always owned our land. We, the rightful owners, our peace was disturbed by white man's arrival here. They committed a black genocide. They killed our people during land dispossession. ... They found peaceful Africans here. They killed them. They slaughtered them like animals. We are not calling for the slaughtering of white people, at least for now. What we are calling for is for peaceful occupation of the land. And we don't owe anyone apology about that. ... Revolution is about making those who are comfortable uncomfortable. ... Revolution is about disturbing the peace of those who are swimming in a peaceful environment through exploitation of the working class. ... Our strategic objective is the defeat of white monopoly capital. And that defeat [...] means the ownership of property must change and be transferred into the hands of the people. Their mines must be nationalized, the banks must be nationalized, the land must be expropriated without compensation. ... But white minority be warned, we will take our land no matter what."
"I am not for reconciliation, I am for justice. There is no reconciliation without justice and justice is the return of land. [...] AfriForum is a boeremag. It’s a group of Afrikaners who still wish for apartheid. They will never see it. Afrikaner boys, die poppe sal dans. The EFF is coming for you boys. Afrikaner boys, the ANC has made you to think this thing is still Orange Free State. This thing is not Orange Free State. This is Free State. When we take over power, Afrikaner males, you will know your place. Just pray, pray to [your] ancestors, pray to Malan, pray to Verwoerd, pray and ask them for EFF not to come into power. Because [if] we come into power, Afrikaner men, this side! This is where you belong, this is how you are going to behave. They must know, these Afrikaner males, they must know, we are not scared of them ideologically, politically and otherwise. We can take each other toe to toe."
"One of the things that we can learn [from] the Cubans is that they are highly politically conscientized. ...they understand what constitute progress and what constitute the enemy. And they have come to appreciate that they are in the situation they are because of the choice they have made, of not wanting to follow what the big brother America says they must do. And they know that if it was not [for the] illegal embargo imposed on them, they were actually going to be a much much more better country. Look at them, they have succeeded, the better education, better healthcare, the illiteracy levels are extreme low, under difficult circumstances. [The] quality of education, the quality of primary healthcare [of some country's without embargoes] is nothing compared to a country [Cuba] which is suffering from a serious economic embargo. So we can learn from the Cubans through their determination, through their appreciation that they are a unique nation, and have chosen their path, and they will lead by their conviction. [Interviewer Bryce-Pease asks Malema about Cuba's socialist-democratic model, lack of human rights, lack of freedom of association or freedom of speech among the opposition, and whether South Africa should take those as lessons.] Malema: ...if they think that their model works for them I am not the one to impose on them what should be the type of political systems in Cuba. They are the ones who can chose which direction they want to take. [Bryce-Pease: Do you see a model like Cuba existing in South Africa?] Malema: When we can do actually much better, our democratic system is intact, it is working [...] but there are a lot of things to learn from Cuba [for instance] inculcating the history of the revolution in our education system, so that everybody else is conscientized... Of course there will be some few elements who are not happy. ... [Castro] is bound to commit mistakes but generally we are more than happy with the type of work he has done for the Cubans and for the Africans as well, having contributed to the decolonization of Africa and the defeat of apartheid in southern Africa..."
"We all know that the Dutch gangsters arrived here and took our land by force. And the struggle has since been about the return of the land to the hands of rightful owners. ... Yet those who went to negotiate for our people during the [Codesa] negotiations sold out this fundamental principle, which constituted the struggle against colonialism."
"The rejection of other Africans is a self-rejection, it is a self-hatred, it's because you don't know who you are. If you know who you are you will never reject people from DRC, you will never reject people from Nigeria, you will never reject people from Ghana, you will never reject people from Zimbabwe, because if you [ap]praise your history, your are actually Zimbabwean, if you [ap]praise your history, you are actually Nigerian. That is what makes us African. That is the beauty of Africa, we share history, we share culture, and all of that. Civilization started here."
"We also want to call upon our fellow Indians here in Natal to respect Africans. They are ill-treating them worse than Afrikaners will do. We don’t want that to continue here in Natal. This is not anti-Indian statement, it is the truth. Indians who own shops don't pay our people, but they give them food parcels. They must be paid a minimum wage. We're not going to nurse feelings here."
"If you don't own a piece of land, you're a coward."
"I heard that these whites are coming to march again, they will announce a new date. I’m thinking national chair we must organise a counter-march and meet them half way. We cannot allow white people to do as they wish in this country, like they’re doing in Palestine. Let them announce the day they’re coming back. Let us meet them toe to toe, let us teach them who owns South Africa. We cannot be harassed in our own country during apartheid and be harassed in our own country during a democratic dispensation by a nonsense Afrikaner community. It must come to an end, let us meet them toe to toe."
"Every land in South Africa should be expropriated without compensation and it will be under the state. The state should be the custodian of the land. ... No one is going to lose his or her house, no one is going to lose his or her flat, no one is going to lose his or her factory or industry. All we are saying is they will not have the ownership of the land."
"Chinese are like Indians. They think they're close to whiteness. When they practice racism they even become worse than whites. There are even Blacks who mimic whiteness. All of this needs to be confronted."
"I know for a fact that Chinese are taking over strategic sectors in Africa. Their ownership is mounting up and [is] even almost worse than white domination."
"We have taken a decision that we are going to remove the mayor of PE. Why? Why not [mayor of DA-led Johannesburg] Mashaba, why not Solly [mayor of DA-led Tshwane]? Because the mayor of DA in PE is a white man. So, these people, when you want to hit them hard – go after a white man. They feel a terrible pain, because you have touched a white man. Not because Mashaba and Solly will not be touched, they will be touched, don't worry. But we are starting with this whiteness. We are cutting the throat of whiteness. Trollip will not be a mayor after the 6th of April, if they give us that date."
"It didn’t end there [with genocide]. They passed law after law‚ taking land from our people. Yet investors never left the country. When they passed the Land Act of 1913‚ investors never left the country. Investors came into the country."
"All white people who are voting DA, who are angry with what we are going to do in PE, who have insulted us since we announced this decision, and mobilised some of your people in the media, to insult us and say all of this, all of you combined can go to hell! We don't care about you. We don't care about you. We don’t care about White feelings."
"<!--Farmers are taking out bonds on their farms, so that they can say it belongs to the bank when we arrive. They work with the banks to try and make the process of land expropriation without compensation fail. We warn the South African banks that--> ...any farm, on which a bond is registered after December 2017, will not be paid by our government. The bond system is anyway a criminal syndicate, ... <!--aimed at stealing from the people. We have no respect for bonds.--> We have no respect for banks, because they are run by criminals. <!--We warn banks we are on the verge of expropriating land without compensation.-->"
"The Zulu king [Zwelithini] must stop these threats of violence. We are not scared. I am scared of no one. No amount of violence can scare me because some of us are surprised that we are still alive today. ... We want every Zulu-speaking person to get a piece of land. If the king wants to give land through the Ingonyama Trust, he must convince the EFF and the government."
"A racist country like Australia says: ‘The white farmers are being killed in South Africa.’ We are not killing them. ... If they want to go, they must go. They must leave the keys to their tractors because we want to work the land, they must leave the keys to their houses because we want to stay in those houses. They must leave everything they did not come here with in South Africa and go to Australia. ... White farmers are the architect of their own misfortune. ... Don’t make noise, because you will irritate us. Go to Australia. It is only racists who went to Australia when Mandela got out of prison. It is only racists who went to Australia when 1994 came. It is the racists again who are going back to Australia. ... They are rich here because they are exploiting black people. There is no black person to be exploited in Australia, they are going to be poor. ... They will come back here with their tail between their legs. We will hire them because we will be the owners of their farms when they come back to South Africa. As to what we are going to do with the land, it’s our business, it’s none of your business."
"Our people are still staying in the same houses that were given to them by apartheid. Our people still stay in the shacks. They came and abandoned you here. They have forgotten about you. They are going to come back next year during elections and say ‘no, you must remember Nelson Mandela, this is the party of Mandela, and we have come a long way with the ANC’. Mandela is no more. He is dead, with his party."
"We’re a very angry society, bad things have happened to us and many people don’t take that into consideration, especially the people who think that they’ve arrived. They forget the pain we have gone through as black people. That anger shows itself from time to time. In the EFF, we try and control it."
"We have instructed our attorneys to appeal [the judgment]. Not even the courts should be allowed to silence the truth, also if that truth is against the Thuma Mina group of the ruling elite."