By Rachel Mohamed
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has announced its intention to appeal the Equality Court’s decision against its leader, Julius Malema, to the Supreme Court of Appeal.
This comes after the court found Malema guilty of hate speech and incitement to violence. The case originates from Malema’s speech at a 2022 rally, where he criticised party members for not acting against a white man involved in an attack against them outside Brackenfell High School in October 2020.
The EFF claims that the decision of the court is a serious misinterpretation of history, philosophy, and the nature of political speech in a democracy.
Prof. Bheki Mngomezulu, political analyst and Director of CANRAD (Centre for the Advancement of Non-Racialism and Democracy) at Nelson Mandela University, told VOC News that he was not surprised by the racial issue, arguing that the rhetoric utilised was bound to elicit strong emotions.
“In this case, Julius Malema is known for making statements that are occasionally misinterpreted to mean things he does not mean,” said Prof. Mngomezulu.
Mngomezulu points to the words of Malema that were shared in the Oval Office earlier in the year, during the meeting between President Cyril Ramaphosa and US President Donald Trump, as an analogy for the EFF leaders’ continued crass dialogue.
“You would have seen what happened in the Oval Office when hate clips were played and taken literally at face value, and then, of course, people started jumping on the bandwagon and started looking at him as anti-white, taking that out of context,” explained the political analyst.
Listen to the full interview:
VOC News
Photo: @Julius_S_Malema / X
