Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema has said that he wasn’t “calling for the slaughtering of white people, at least for now.” This was during an impassioned speech to a crowd of EFF supporters, as well as some members of the IFP and ANC, outside the Newcastle Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
Malema appeared in court on charges of contravening Section 18 2(b) of the Riotous Assemblies Act of 1956 for earlier calling for his supporters to illegally occupy vacant land. In terms of the relevant section of the Act any person who “incites, instigates, commands, or procures any other person to commit, any offence, whether at common law or against a statute or statutory regulation, shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to the punishment to which a person convicted of actually committing that offence would be liable.”
Malema’s lawyer, Tumi Mokoena, has said that he will be challenging the constitutionality of the legislation, coming as it does from the apartheid-era. At the hearing on Monday Magistrate Ian Colditz agreed to postpone the matter pending proof of the application, after which the matter would be heard on May 5 2017.
In his speech outside the court Malema launched a sustained attack on South Africa’s white minority, as well as this group’s continued right to own land and other property in the country.
Three relevant extracts follow below:
I
“When you try to occupy an unoccupied land you are committing a crime. Do you know why? Because you are taking a white man’s land. You are taking the land and this land belongs to mlungu, so we must protect the Europeans against the non-Europeans that is why we are called here. Because no-one must disturb the peace of white people. Who are you to disturb the piece of white people? How do you disturb the peace of white people because you want to talk the land… of white people!?
And the ANC shall punish you for disturbing the peace of white people. Because white people are untouchable. White people are from heaven. No one dares touch white people. You touch a white person you will go to jail. You must ask Mandela. You must ask Sobukwe. You must ask Steve Biko. They have not doing anything wrong, except to disturb the peace… of the white man.
So, black people, you are subjects of white people. Even under ANC, even under so-called democracy. You are subjects, you are servants, of white people.
No white man will be served by me. I do not serve white masters! I will never serve white masters! I am here to disturb the white man’s peace.
They are right, 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 living peacefully. 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. Today, we are told don’t disturb them, even when they disturbed our peace. 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 peaceful occupation of the land. And we don’t owe anyone apology about that.:
II
If we all act in line with the constitution everything else will be in order. There is no one here who is denied the right to the land by the constitution. We must occupy the constitution so that we are taken to the constitutional court.
Let the court declare that we blacks, particularly Africans, don’t have a right to access the land. This battle of the land is in the hands of the EFF. We will fight for it. No amount of intimidation will silence us. No amount of prison will silence us. Not even torture, not even anything, can tell us to keep quiet about the land.
Every time we are fighting with Zuma these white fellows are clapping hands. They think we’ve forgotten what is our strategic objective. Zuma is not our strategic objective. Our strategic objective is the defeat of White Monopoly Capital.
And that defeat of White Monopoly Capital means the ownership of property must change and be transferred into the hands of the people. The mines must be nationalised! The banks must be nationalised! The land must be expropriated, without compensation!
That is what we are talking about. Zuma is a by-the-way. So, white man, before you clap hands for EFF, you must think twice.
Uh uh. It is like when we travel in a car and we get a puncture we stop and fix the tyre, but the journey continues. What is the journey? The journey is the defeat of White Monopoly Capital! The defeat of the Ruperts! The defeat of the Oppenheimers! We want Newcastle owned by black people.
We will not chase white people into the sea. We will give them portion. [unclear] That is where you stay. And you can’t own bigger than us. You are a visitor. Visitors must behave. They must know the land belongs to the people of South Africa, the indigenous people of South Africa.
We will never keep quiet. The struggle was formed for the land. The ANC was formed for the land. It has always been about the land. The PAC was formed for the land.
So, we are continuing with the journey of those who came before us. This is not a Malema issue. It is a generational matter. For as long as the land is not in the hands of black people we remain a conquered nation! We are conquered! We are defeated! 1994 means NOTHING without the land!
Victory will only be victory if the land is restored in the hands of rightful owners. And rightful owners unashamedly is black people. No white person is a rightful owner of the land here in South Africa and in the whole of the African continent. This is our continent, it belongs to us.
We want our land. It must come with everything. It comes with the sea. The sea belongs to us. The fish in the sea belongs to us. The land comes with the trees. The trees belongs to us. That include dagga. It belongs to us. It is our dagga, we want it back.
We want everything that comes with the land. So you must not be ashamed. It comes with beautiful mountains. Those mountains belong to us. We want our land with the mountains, with the trees, with the animals - he lions you find here, the elephant, the big five, belongs to us. Heaven, how can a white man come to Africa carrying a lion. They found it here. It belongs to us!
So this struggle – the minerals, gold, diamonds, platinum, coal – everything that comes with the land, belongs to us. South Africans you are rich, yet you are poor. When EFF takes over this land with its minerals will be restored in your hands.
You will be proud to be black. Today, we are ashamed of being black, because we think being black means being poor. But the day the land is restored in the hands of the rightful owners you shall walk with confidence.
You will never be ashamed of being black, you will never doubt yourself. Why? Because you will be owning mountains, the animals, the beautiful beaches of KwaZulu-Natal. They belong to you. The struggle continues.
III
They all agree by the way that land belongs to us. But they say we must buy it. How can you say you must buy something that belongs to you? What is funny is that they all agree that the land belongs to us. It is like somebody saying to you ‘Hey, this Mazda 323 belongs to you. I stole it. I am sorry. But give me R100.” I will take your teeth out, when I find you in possession of my stolen vehicle. Why should you negotiate with a thug, the land thieves, the criminals!? The real criminals are not in the court. The people who are saying “bring back what belongs to us”, they are the ones who are in a court.
The people who belong to the court is FW de Klerk and all those whites who stole our land. But white minority’s be warned, we will take our land. It doesn’t matter how. It is coming unavoidable, it is coming inevitable. The land will be taken by whatever means necessary. This land will be returned to black people.
