Unemployment, excessive boozing & schools – six important quotes from Julius Malema’s Youth Day address

The EFF held a virtual Youth Day rally on Tuesday, in commemoration of the 1976 Soweto student uprising.

Here are six quotes from party leader Julius Malema's address:

The youth stood up

“We choose to honour this generation that took a stand when it was not fashionable to do so. We choose to remember the young people who confronted the brutal apartheid regime of machine guns and dogs, with stones in their hands and the idea that black children choose to determine their lives in the land of their ancestors.”

The fight continues

“We must continue to fight for our freedom. We have a responsibility to follow in the right direction. The apartheid regime, which legislated the exploitation and dehumanisation of African people was a regime that survived on fear and violence meted against black bodies. It was a racist regime that embarrassed black fathers, abused black mothers and separated black families through migrant labour.”

Youth unemployment

“Our country has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. Fifty percent of all people between the ages of 15-35 are unemployed and are sitting in our communities becoming more unemployable, and resorting to crime and alcoholism. We are losing a generation of young people to hopelessness because of the lack of inward industrial development in SA and the continent.”

A sober youth

“The youth of today must learn from that of 1976 and not turn to alcohol when confronted with problems that require principled activism and innovative political solutions. The youth of today must be at the forefront of saving our people from destructive dependency on alcohol, which dulls the consciousness of the country and creates empty shells with no appetite to change their conditions.”

GBV

“Since we entered level 3 of lockdown, it is South African men who are murdering, butchering and raping South African women. It is SA men who are beating their children and abandoning their families. Where are the hypocrites who want to blame fellow Africans for all the social problems of SA?”

Reopening schools 

“The EFF maintains the rejection of the reopening of schools in the midst of the increase of cases and deaths related to Covid-19. The department of basic education's claim that more than 97% of schools were ready was based on the existence of the facility and not on the qualitative aspect of the facility.”