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ANC Youth League president Julius Malema. Photo: Antoine de Ras
ANC Youth League President Julius Malema launched a brazen attack on ANC leaders yesterday, referring to them as “baboons”, and questioning whether they were able to deliver on the party’s promises.
Speaking in Sotho, Malema said: “The people that did not want us here, they are baboons… but the baboons they didn’t know, they didn’t know how we work, that we have ways to get to our people.
“Those baboons they don’t drink your tap water,” he added.
Speaking as the ANC’s three-day birthday festivities teed off with a golf day, Malema suggested ANC leaders were living the high life while the majority of “our people” survived on breadcrumbs.
“We have arrived? We have not arrived,” he told an enthusiastic crowd of several hundred people, of all ages, in Khayelitsha township in Mangaung yesterday afternoon.
As he spoke, many made the football substitution sign - indicating a desire for a change of leadership.
Malema’s remarks have been dismissed by the ANC. A visibly irritated ANC spokesman, Jackson Mthembu, said last night: “I really don’t think that such comments are worth responding to.
“I will not stoop to that level. I am a disciplined cadre of the ANC. And (a disciplined cadre) would never refer to his own leaders as baboons.”
Among those present at the Khayelitsha meeting were Malema’s staunchest ally, Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula, ANC spokesman Keith Khoza, youth league national executive member Thabo Kupe, its spokesman Floyd Shivambu and secretary general Sindiso Magaqa, as well as provincial league leaders.
Malema challenged Zuma’s pledge to create jobs, saying “we are tired of that story” - and questioned when the ANC was going to make good on its promises of a better life for all.
A militant Malema said: “People must not live like pigs. (There’s) no dignity because you are living in shacks - we need decent houses. We must bring that dignity.
“One hundred years of the ANC must mean a roof over your head, bread on the table… that’s why the struggle continues.
“(The) ANC is your organisation. For 100 years it has not made a mistake, it’s the individuals.”
The league wants to see Zuma replaced by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe when the ANC returns to Mangaung for its elective conference in 11 months. Mbalula is being punted to take over from Gwede Mantashe as secretary general.
Malema promised the crowd “we’ll come back here - as the ANC is leading you must know your problems will be resolved”.
Mbalula, who also spoke in Sotho, said: “We are the future - no one will stop us.”
He urged those gathered, who belted out the anti-Zuma song Shawara wa re sokodisa (The shower is giving us a hard time) to “not be afraid of those fools who only talk but don’t deliver”.
The song was sung at the league’s Limpopo conference, where Malema held his hand over his head - a reference to Zuma’s having showered after unprotected sex with a woman living with HIV - a gesture repeated by Malema’s audience yesterday.
Later, Malema said in English: “We want to live like whites; we don’t want to chase them away, we want to live with whites and like whites.
“That is what we are fighting about. We will never sell you out, we will never retreat.”
He added in Sotho: “Even if they suspend us we will be in the conference in Mangaung.”
Malema is awaiting the outcome of his appeal against his five-year suspension after being found guilty of sowing divisions and bringing the ANC into disrepute.
In a direct challenge to the ANC’s leadership, he said: “Whether you suspend us or not we will continue to fight for our people.
“No suspension will deter us.
“Tsotsis will rape ANC processes (because) this child is disturbing us,” a defiant Malema said.
He, Shivambu and the four other top league officials sanctioned late last year claim their disciplinary hearings had been politically motivated.
Introducing Malema, league secretary general Sindiso Magaqa said there were “those who said he (Malema) won’t be part of the centenary but we are witnessing” that he was.
“Those who are excited that he won’t speak at the January 8 statement here in Mangaung, we want to tell them now he is speaking to the people, he is speaking to you,” Magaqa said.
It was the last of three mini-rallies organised by the league after the ANC leadership denied Malema a formal opportunity to speak during its 100th birthday celebrations in Mangaung this weekend.
ANC chairman Baleka Mbete announced earlier this week that - in a break with tradition - there would be none of the messages of support customarily delivered by the ANC’s alliance partners, Cosatu and the SACP, and its youth and women’s league at tomorrow’s rally, where President Jacob Zuma will speak.
This was seen by the league as a bid to muzzle it.
Most journalists had stopped trailing Malema after he addressed another mini-rally in Thaba ’Nchu earlier in the afternoon.
On Thursday Malema addressed a crowd said to have been several thousand strong in the Free State mining town of Welkom, where he said he’d heard rumours of plans to disrupt tomorrow’s rally and that this should not be done in his name. - Saturday Argus
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robrat, wrote
Wow! Malema, i can remember some years back some people reffered you to a boboon and that was serious and contemptious situation and you are now employing these tactics to senior government members. It is clear that you have no respect for yourself let alone people in a leadership role and hey guese what i am a white boy, you have to be decent to be respected and not use the youth for gains of stupid popularity by also putting more unessescary and revolutionary ideals into peoples heads. This is a good country and and you are trying to best to destabilize it with your petty spoilt boy attitude. wake up my little fat boy and be decent to all who love and live in this country or do you want to turn it into a war torn Africa.
tzME, wrote
We have degenerated to levels that are ever so low, have we not? Will Motlanthe have the political "savvy" not to get into bed with folk of this ilk? The prognosis is not very good, is it?
dugsbaws, wrote
Ja...JU JU ..dis reg..you are all baboons together. the shops in Bloem are all stacked up with bananas, plenty of baboon kos.....
franko, wrote
What can I say, sound so true but, hope he includes himself though
Anonymous, wrote
Malema wants to live with whites, isnt he doing that already in his posh Sandton home? Then he wants to be like whites. He has to start acting like one first. Whites believe in freedom of the press and arent the enemy. Malemas' enemy is within himself. Change your outlook my man, and see the world with compassion and humility.
Daniel, wrote
The POT calling the KETTLE black??
Precious, wrote
A hundred million spent on the party bash is nothing according to Mbalula. The ANC are so used to spending and talking big money that they have lost sight of the real value of money. And making live sacrifices of cattle at the church of Christ is satanism!
Musikwudd, wrote
Baboon is callingb baboons baboons...... Was not Malema himself an ANC - leader ? Baboons are not bad people : Only they are living their extreme animalic egoism.....not based on rationality but instincts !
lehlogonolo, wrote
It seems our brother Malema is very much like a black Terreblanche. He say he wants to live like the whites, so then he must start living the white culture and finish high school, then go to higher education and only then try to lead people towards the white culture, which created prosperity for many of our brothers and their very existence of millions of others thanks to their knowledge, technology and economic knowledge.
paul, wrote
Here we go again, the Malema roadshow and extravaganza. When , oh when is the A.N.C. leadership going to show some leadership and backbone and put a stop to this mentally unstable guys nonesence. Every day that goes by, every comment that he makes, his spite and racial hatred just underscores the resentment against him most black and white South Africans votors feel. We worry about the future, the economy and our children when you have people like this bafoon and his ilk walking around shooting their mouths of in such a manner. What I cannot understand is why he is given the publicity. God help South Africa and its people.
Chris, wrote
Yip, Julius is 100% right. The ANC has been baboons since i could remember. But Julius is obviously the biggest baboon of them all. They all are trying to out baboon eacvh other. LOL.
madhir, wrote
Thats rich coming from him. Has juju looked in the mirror recently?
Benson, wrote
So what's new. The type of language is getting lower and lower. Before you know it, the only word left in their vocabulary will be paw-paw.
MK, wrote
'Malema suggested ANC leaders were living the high life while the majority of “our people” survived on breadcrumbs.' Umm, is this the same Malema who's building the mansion in Johannesburg? I assume he's planning to turn it into an orphanage once it's finished...
Other Babook, wrote
How can IOL refer to Malema as the "ANCYL President". I believe he was kicked out a few weeks ago and is now a farmer somewhere in the NW. I feel that IOL should take note of what they write or are they trying to make a point? Lets get the correct news please!!
Anonymous, wrote
Typical - POT calling the KETTLE black!
mandla, wrote
julius. you have done a very bad thing here. no matter your thoughts, this is a weeked of celebrration. a celebration of the party and revolution that made you, that brought you to this point. no matter your persnal opinion, we all have them, this is not the weeked for them. yu have brought shame on yourself, adn hve stained the centenary. if i was u, i will keep a very close watch over your shoulder. shame on u. your pig farm is waiting for you. perhaps you can make pork sushi
Arthur, wrote
I find this very funny and haven't stopped laughing
Anonymous, wrote
As much as we dislike him he does sometimes say something worthwhile. The ANC leadership has done nothing for the poor masses and have only enriched themselves.
kagiso, wrote
Is Malema being racist by referring to ANC top brass as baboons? Makes you think... The race card comes out when it suits...
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