Last night Julius Malema leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) remarked about how Zimbabweans are “better off” than their South African Counterparts. While addressing thousands of people in Limpopo Malema praised the way his mentor Robert Mugabe seized the land from white farmers. Malema admitted that although the economy was left in tatters, the people of Zimbabwe are free and potentially in a stronger position.
What Malema is doing is describing his hatred of white farmers. Last year during September 2015 Malema delivered a speech at a press club in Cape Town and sharply criticized the past attempts and failures of the African National Congress (ANC) on land reform.
At this meeting, Malema recited the song about how white people stole the land and said no compensation would be forthcoming. Malema told his audience that the White people did not pay for the land but committed black genocide and that the black people who survived the onslaught were transformed into slaves. Malema again told the white people to hand over the land.
In November last year The Pan-Africanists and Black Consciousness movement slated Malema and the ANC as selling out their people. In a statement, this group said Malema openly engaged leaders of the white agricultural sector in the Western Cape and had assured the whites that their interests in the land would be secured and intact.
At another meeting held at Oxford University, Malema referred to the Freedom Charter as the bible of the South African revolution and that there would be no deviation from that. At that meeting, Malema openly rejected the revolutionary process of land reform in Zimbabwe.
Since Malema is hoping to achieve a resounding success in the upcoming local elections to be held on August 3, his speeches are lacking consistency. By proclaiming the manner in which Zimbabwe seized the land is setting the stage for anarchy and inciting violence against South African Farmers.
Malema has failed to realize the amount of productive land in South Africa averages about forty percent and failed to address the vast amount of food-producing land already given to black farmers over the last 20 years. Malema failed to mention how many black farmers have destroyed once fertile land that now lays barren. Another point Malema forgot to mention is the thirty-two percent of land given to the nine different ethnic groups in the 1970s to create an opportunity to govern their land successfully but failed dismally. And then Malema forgot to mention that the apartheid government gave these different ethnic groups the resources to implement stable states.
Malema fails to tell his audience that it was not only white land that must be expropriated but the land stolen by black tribes.
Land grabbing through violent means among African cultures has happened in the past, and land reform should not be taken as an opportunity to force whites off the land. Malema should know that forcibly removing productive land from successful farmers produces famine, unemployment, crime. Malema should be aware that the northern border countries have confirmed the collapse of productivity that often occurs when violent land reform happens. Of course, anarchy will ensue when measures are taken to remove people forcibly from their property. However much Malema praises the Zimbabweans, he is forgetting the suffering and continued struggles of these people.
Read this story – Malema says seizure of land makes Zimbabweans better off than SA counterparts
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