Thousands protest against ‘racist’ banks
CIVIL society flexed its muscles against “racist” banks in a protest yesterday outside Rand Merchant Bank with about 3 000 people in attendance.
The protest saw different civic organisations coming together and singing with one voice against structural financial racism and bank bullying.
Present at the protest were the EFF, the SA National Civic Organisation, the ANC, MKMVA, Cosas and other civil society organisations and trade unions. Ordinary people who had lost their houses to the banks also came to show their support against the “racist banks”.
The protest also included prominent members of society, such as shareholders of the SA Reserve Bank and a former minister.
Slogans and chants of “FNB must fall” reverberated all over Friedman Drive.
The banks were also challenged for not freezing the accounts of racist white people such as former ministers of apartheid South Africa. The groups present at the protest handed over a memorandum as a sign of a united struggle. MKMVA treasurer-general Des van Rooyen said this event should not be a once-off, calling on more people to mobilise.
“This event we have today is long overdue. As the MKMVA, we say there is no freedom without a financial economy. We need to take stock after 27 years of so-called freedom, the financial sectors have not transformed. These are the banks that championed and sponsored the apartheid regime,” said Van Rooyen.
He urged the government, as the biggest client of the banks, not to be quiet when black people continued to be victimised and excluded.
“We call for the nationalisation of the SA Reserve Bank (SARB),” said Makhosini Kharodi of the Black Finance and Banking Association of SA.
There was large police presence at the protest, with traffic having to be diverted on Friedman Drive.