Opinion - The trouble with Julius Malema and his Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is that they are fast running out of ideas.
In the early days when Malema was still head of the ANC’s youth league, he was quite happy to throw his weight behind Jacob Zuma, helping him win election as president in 2007 and even vowing to die for the man if the need ever arose.
Such displays of political loyalty are rare to find these days.
But when Malema assumed leadership of the EFF and found himself in a direct collision course with the ANC, he conveniently changed tactics, making Zuma the prime target of his party’s strategy.
Whenever Zuma rose to speak, Malema and his MPs created such chaos and bedlam in the House that parliamentary security had to be summoned to expel them from proceedings.
And now that Zuma is longer president, the EFF is at a loose end, searching for a new cause.
Malema thinks he’s found it by reaching for the race card, which he has never hesitated to use in the past.
That probably accounts for his crude and racially insensitive attacks on Indians and coloured people at a Youth Day event in Klerksdorp over the weekend when he said: “We were not all oppressed the same. Indians had all sorts of resources Africans didn’t have; coloureds as well.
The majority of Indians are racist. I’m not saying all, I’m saying majority.”
When the EFF leader says not all South Africans of colour suffered the same during apartheid, he is quite correct.
It is a fact that the policy of apartheid was tiered and deliberately designed to separate people in terms of their race.
It was all part of a policy to divide and rule.
But what he conveniently avoids telling his followers is that it’s not as if Indian and coloured people had asked for any special favours from the apartheid rulers.
Although African people suffered the most under apartheid, Indians and coloured people were also victims of apartheid.
Malema’s sweeping generalisation is quite patently another act of racial baiting on his part.
When it comes to sensitive issues like race, we as a newspaper would prefer to rely on more authoritative and trusted sources like the SA Institute of Race Relations, which in its latest survey reported a distinct improvement in race-related issues in the country.
We have a long way to travel but are certainly on the right path.