Jean-Jacques Cornish

Julius Malema raises race storm calling most South African Indians racist

The leader of the far left Economic Freedom Fighters Julius Malema says the majority of South African Indians are racist.

There’s been a furious reaction of social media to Malema’s remarks at the Youth Day rally

Julius Malema declared that black South Africans have suffered more than any other race.

He rounded on Indian journalists for coming to the defence of the deputy secretary general in the Treasury Ishmael Momoniat after EFF chief whip Floyd Shivambu objected to the presence of a non-African at a Parliamentary committee meeting.

Malema said there’s a tendency among South African Indians  to look down on Africans and that there was a hierarchy of oppression under apartheid.  He also said Indians were better off than mixed race South African called Coloureds, who were in turn better off than Africans.

According to Malema, this is why the liberation struggle was to free blacks in general and Africans in particular.

He went on to say that Africans must never apologize for this, and they must never be scared to say most Indians are racist. 

He also claimed that  the majority of Indians hate Africans.

Malema believes that this a reality Africans have to deal with.

This is not an entirely new issue. A year ago Mama infuriated the Indian community saying they exploited African workers and monopolized the economy of the KwaZulu/Natal province where most of them live. 

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Jean-Jacques Cornish is a journalist and broadcaster who has been involved in the media all his adult life.

Starting as a reporter on his hometown newspaper, he moved briefly to then Rhodesia before returning to South Africa to become a parliamentary correspondent with the South African Press Association. He was sent to London as Sapa’s London editor and also served as special correspondent to the United Nations. He joined the then Argus group in London as political correspondent.

Returning to South Africa after 12 years abroad, he was assistant editor on the Pretoria News for a decade before becoming editor of the Star and SA Times for five years.

Since 1999 he’s been an independent journalist writing and broadcasting – mainly about Africa – for Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape
Talk, Radio France International, PressTV, Radio Live New Zealand, Business Day, Mail & Guardian, the BBC, Agence France Press,
Business in Africa, Leadership, India Today, the South African Institute for International Affairs and the Institute for Security Studies.

He has hosted current affairs talk shows on Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape Talk. He appears as an African affairs pundit on SABC Africa and CNBC Africa.
He lectured in contemporary studies to journalism students at the Tshwane University of Technology and the University of Pretoria.

He speaks on African affairs to corporate and other audiences.
He has been officially invited as a journalist to more than 30 countries. He was the winner of the 2007 SADC award for radio journalism.

He’s been a member of the EISA team observing elections in Somaliland, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Egypt and Tunsiai.

In October 2009 he headed a group of 39 African journalists to the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Peoples’ Republic of China.

In January 2010 he joined a rescue and paramedical team to earthquake struck Haiti.

He is immediate past president of the Alliance Francaise of Pretoria.

Jean-Jacques is a director of Giant Media. The company was given access to Nelson Mandela in his retirement years until 2009.
He is co-producer of the hour-long documentary Mandela at 90 that was broadcast on BBC in January 2009.