The EFF is fully behind UCT students and academics' demand for Rhodes to fall

17 March 2015

The Economic Freedom Fighters is fully behind the protests to remove the statue of White Supremacist, Coloniser and Murderer, Cecil John Rhodes from the University of Cape Town. Despite the many fake accolades Rhodes has been given, he remains a Murderer who championed the colonisation of Africa and racial segregation in a system which forced indigenous Africans to hard, low paying jobs in order to buttress the emerging capitalist system.

Rhodes can never be a symbol worth celebrating in a post 1994 South Africa. The EFF is not opportunistically raising the issue of Rhodes due to the momentum of students' and Academics' demand to fall in UCT. The EFF has consistently called for the removal of symbols of Colonialism and white supremacy from the face of South Africa. On various occasions, the EFF has demanded the complete removal and demolition of apartheid symbols, including the ones next to the Parliament of South Africa.

In his maiden speech as Member of Parliament, the Commander in Chief Julius Malema amongst other things said, "The statue of Botha out outside this Parliament must go down, because it represents nothing of what a democratic South Africa stands for"

The South African Government and many public institutions continue to celebrate colonial Murderers and White Supremacists and this should come to a complete end. The protests in UCT should serve as an inspiration to all South Africans in all other parts of South Africa who are still living under shadows of colonial oppressors. They too must destroy them as symbols of white supremacy and as statues erected to celebrate racists and racism. Rhodes must fall and all racist colonial statues must also fall.

Statement issued by Economic Freedom Fighters, March 17 2015

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