Maverick opposition politician, Julius Malema, has reawakened claims of racism against the black majority population in South Africa. This time, however, voices have been raised from within the black community challenging the propriety of his claims.

A KwaZulu-Natal minority rights group is looking to open a third case against EFF leader, Malema, for claiming that the majority of Indians are racist.

Malema was speaking at his party’s Youth Day commemorations in Klerksdorp in the North West Province recently.

“(The) majority of Indians hate Africans, (the) majority of Indians are racist, and we must never be scared to say that they are racist.

“I’m not saying all Indians, I’m saying the majority of them,” he said.

Daleep Lutchman, chairperson of the South African Minority Rights Equality Movement (Samrem) said they would meet to decide what charges to press against Malema for “going back to the apartheid system of classifying people by race”.

In his speech, Malema said there was a hierarchy in apartheid. “We were not oppressed the same. Our oppression was worse than the oppression of the Indians,” he said, suggesting South Africans of Indian descent be given a lower BEE score.

Malema also said while Indians did not create inequalities, they looked down on Africans.

“When you speak against them, they organise some Indian mob to attack us and expect us to keep quiet until we speak about that reality, they will never change.”

Malema hit out at Indians for identifying more with white people, saying this explained why they voted for the DA.
“If there are Indians who are going to catch feelings about this statement, it is your own baby”

However, Lutchman believes Indians also suffered under apartheid as the land given to them was not arable.
“We fished instead and sold the fish back to the white man. Indians grew their own wealth and worked hard using their own initiative, not handouts.”

Samrem had two cases pending against Malema, both relating to his utterances at the EFF’s fourth anniversary celebrations in Durban a year ago. “He made very divisive statements about Indians mono- polising the economy, underpaying workers and being worse than Afrikaners,” said Lutchman.

The organisation locked horns with Malema in 2011 after he referred to Indians as c***lies. He had met with them, apologised for his ignorance at the word being derogatory and Samrem dropped the charges.

“We thought he was sincere but he continued to make bold, sweeping statements about us with no evidence, proof or statistics. We could do the same but we don’t,” said Lutchman.