INLSA
Julius Malema
The rift between the ANC Youth League and its mother body could be resolved though a mere meeting, suspended league president Julius Malema suggested yesterday.
“The problems… can be resolved by one thing, a meeting. We ask for a meeting which can resolve all the problems. We do not ask for any favours,” Malema told a crowd attending the league’s centenary mini-rally in Kliptown, Soweto.
Malema said this was all the league had, in its frustrated state, been asking for, but the ANC leadership “never responded positively”.
“What makes a good leader is the ability to listen. Even if we are mad, the leadership must listen to our madness.”
He cautioned the youth to exercise restraint amidst these “problems”. This follows Thursday’s incident where youth league members heckled and threw chairs during President Jacob Zuma’s ANC centenary address in Cape Town.
“That conduct is incorrect. No matter how frustrated you are… shouting and howling while the president of the ANC speaks is incorrect,” said Malema.
As long as Zuma was still in office, he must be given the necessary respect, he said. Malema conceded to Zuma’s recent comments that no one was above the ANC.
“Discipline in the ANC means the ability to accept that the organisation is above you even when you are treated unfairly… even when there are frustrations,” he said.
Malema told supporters he was being persecuted for being the voice of the poor.
“The ANC is punishing us for speaking for poor people. We are also being punished for asking the ANC to make Alexandra look like Sandton,” he said.
After his address he led the singing of Struggle song Senzeni Na? (What did we do wrong?).
Malema, who arrived two hours late, turned up chauffeured in a navy BMW 750i.
Meanwhile the family of ANC founding president John Langalibalele Dube criticised the mob which jeered Zuma in Cape Town. Addressing the JL Dube Legacy project in Inanda on Saturday, Dube’s great grandson, Langa Dube, criticised the action, saying it was unbecoming of them to try to disrupt an important function.
ANC national chairwoman Baleka Mbete, who also addressed the function, also criticised the Cape Town incident, saying she hoped it would not be repeated in KwaZulu-Natal.
