EFF STATEMENT ON THE AFRI-FORUM ACCUSATIONS OF ASSAULT AGAINST THE CIC JULIUS MALEMA
23 October 2014
Economic Freedom Fighters confirms the incident of the 6 August 2014 in which the Commander in Chief, Julius Malema was in an altercation with an Afri-Forum member. The CIC was travelling from Tzaneen, in the Mopane region of Limpopo from a event when he stopped at a filling station where the alleged incident took place.
Indeed, the incident took place at the Steers shop, which is located at the Sasol garage just outside Tzaneen. The CIC had stopped for refreshments and food, and whilst waiting for an order he saw a drunk white man aggressively moving out of his car rushing into the Steers shop.
At this point the CIC followed the man and witnessed him shouting F*** and K***** words at black female workers. He then approached him and told him to stop what he was doing and step aside to allow workers to do their job. The CIC strongly indicated to him that he must be mindful that workers are overworked and underpaid and that he must immediately desist from insulting workers.
After the CIC together with other customers successfully removed him physically from the position of shouting and insulting workers he left the shop, he shortly returned to get his order from his lady friend. The man was then seen aggressively spinning off the car where he even almost crashed into petrol tanks risking the lives of everyone.
The EFF is proud of the CIC in that he has truly defended black workers who daily face abuse from both their employers as well as arrogant, racist and bullying white customers. It is the duty of all fighters to confront racism each time it rears its ugly head. It is also the duty of EFF members everywhere to defend the dignity of black vulnerable workers without any apology or hesitation as the policies of EFF state.
Steers must be asked if it celebrates the abuse of its workers by racists costumers since they have released this video without even saying anything. They must be asked if they are part of racism since they have collaborated with racists of AfriForum to defend the drunk, arrogant and bullying racist white man who was abusing workers. Furthermore, it is questionable that they have released a selective portrayal of events and not all of them from outside so that the arrogance of the man could be see, for that is how arrogant racists have become.
The CIC will never apologise and the EFF stand firmly with him; black dignity has long been degraded by centuries of slavery and colonisation. The EFF and all its members have a duty to make sure to confront it each time they see a sign of it, or each time they hear a sigh of racism.
The case is therefore an attempt to protect racism and the racists. It is a case of the white racist arrogance of one individual now taking the form of a collective response. AfriForum is basically acting as a lynch mob like the KKK who used to collectively respond each time when one white racist had been put to their place by blacks. AfriForum can be sure that EFF will never allow any racist offensive on black folks. Not under our watch and not in our lifetime.
Statement issued by the Economic Freedom Fighters, October 23 2014
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