Durban – Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema on Monday, told hundreds of supporters in KwaZulu-Natal that he longs for the day when white South Africans serve black citizens.
“I don’t want blacks to work for whites, I want you to work for yourselves; white people will work for you. That will be true freedom. You must teach them how to carry babies on their back. They must feel what our parents have been feeling,” he said.
Malema was addressing a large crowd outside the Newcastle Magistrate’s Court on Monday following a brief appearance on charges of contravening the Riotous Assemblies Act.
The case relates to utterances made by the politician in 2016 in Newcastle when he was addressing an EFF rally and called on supporters to identify land and seize it.
The case was postponed to July as Malema’s legal team has challenged the constitutionality of the Act in the Pretoria High Court. That case was heard in December and a judgment is pending. The outcome of the case will affect the Newcastle charges.
“We are not calling for white people to be killed, but for white people to be our domestic workers,” Malema told the cheering crowd.
But whites could only work for blacks when the country’s land was returned to the majority, he said.
Malema said the EFF would “take this land and make it more nicer and enjoyable for black people”.
He wasn’t calling for whites to leave the country, said Malema, because they weren’t going anywhere; there was no “ship” waiting to take whites away.
“I long for the day when a white man will be driving a tractor on your farm. I long for a day when [Democratic Alliance MP John] Steenhuisen will be driving a tractor on [EFF national spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi’s] farm. White privilege will come to an end under EFF,” Malema said, to cheers from the crowd.
White citizens who wanted to leave the country because they were “threatened” by black ownership should leave, he said.
“We will stay here with whites who appreciate that blacks must own all strategic things in the economy – land, banks, mines,” he said.
“When the black child is liberated, you will not worship everything white.”
Malema reiterated that he wasn’t “scared of going to prison to fight for the land”.
The African National Congress (ANC) was scared of white people, he said, because they were “too old”.
“They have been beaten by them, arrested by them. [But] I don’t understand why if you are young you are scared by white people,” he said.
“They have never beaten you, they are equal to you,” he said to cheers.
“This is Shaka Zulu’s land, not Van Wyk and Van Tonder’s land,” he said.
“This land belongs to our forefathers, who fought these bastards. And they thought they defeated our forefathers, and [that] they will defeat us now. Let them come. We are ready for them.”