Juju calls Indians to ‘join blacks’
EFF PRESIDENT Julius Malema yesterday said that Indians must stop thinking they are better than blacks and instead unite in a common struggle.
Malema criss-crossed Durban campaigning for his party yesterday, and at Durban University of Technology he told hundreds of students, most clad in the party’s red regalia, that Africans, Indians and coloureds needed to join in solidarity.
“We must do away with the apartheid mentality that Indians are better than blacks. We want to see (Indians) in the picket lines if they are fighting for better education.
“They qualify for BEE, they can’t just be black when they want jobs.
“Even if they can afford education they must join us. Because they benefit from BEE, they can’t be black when they want to qualify for BEE points, but when there is a black struggle they are not part of that black struggle.”
He challenged DUT student representative council president, Sesiyanda Godlimpi of the EFF Student Command, to champion the interests of the students, “in particular African students, because we are the most oppressed”.
“Twenty-five years into democracy white, Indian and African accommodation must be the same.
“If there’s no hot water, there must not be hot water even in residences where there are predominantly whites and Indians, otherwise we’re still living under apartheid,” Malema said.
He said Indians should be alongside Africans in the picket lines and “play” solidarity with Africans, because a bond would be formed through the two race groups facing struggles together and through suffering together.
“That’s how we are going to realise black unity in action,” he said, not unity through lip service.
Last month, at the EFF’s provincial manifesto launch in Chatsworth, Malema said that for there to be unity among black people, “the Indian community must rework their mentality that they are closer to whiteness, because they are not closer to whiteness, they are black”.
“We are all victims of apartheid, were all exploited by apartheid, and Indians must accept that without unity of purpose among Africans and Indians, the white minority will continue to exploit us,” Malema had said.
Yesterday, Malema said that Nelson Mandela made a mistake in 1994 by prioritising RDP houses, and that the first priority should have been free education, because “stats show that unemployment among graduates is almost 5%.
“If we had given people free education in 1994, there would have been no need for 1 million RDP houses, because education will lead to quality paying jobs, so people can build their own houses.
“No one can choose such a match box, people want proper houses. They can build houses for themselves if we give them education,” he said.
We must do away with the apartheid mentality that Indians are better