Julius ‘Firebrand’ Malema, he certainly can talk the talk.

The EFF leader appeared on Talk To Al Jazeera, speaking to journalist Jonah Hull, and he was in no mood to mince his words.

Let’s run through the highlights of what he had to say, from PoliticsWeb:

[He said] that if the ruling African National Congress (ANC) continue to respond violently to peaceful protests: “We will run out of patience very soon and we will remove this government through the barrel of a gun”…

The exchange began when Hull asked Malema how far he was willing to go in his “war” against President Jacob Zuma and reminded him of his 2014 threat to make the entire Gauteng province ungovernable.

“‘We will fight,’ you said. ‘We have the capability to mobilise our people and fight physically,” Hull said. “That’s not befitting of a government in waiting, is it?”

“We know for a fact that Gauteng ANC rigged elections here,” Malema replied. “We know for a fact that they lost Johannesburg and they lost Gauteng. But we still accepted it. But they must know that we are not going to do that this year. We are not going to accept. Part of the revolutionary duty is to fight and we are not ashamed if the need arise for us to take up arms and fight. We will fight.

This regime must respond peacefully to our demands, must respond constitutionally to our demands. And if they are going to respond violently – like they did in the township of Alexandra, just outside Johannesburg, when people said these results do not reflect the outcome of our votes, they sent the army to go and intimidate our people – we are not going to stand back. Zuma is not going to use the army to intimidate us. We are not scared of the army. We are not scared to fight. We will fight.”

Hull asked Malema to clarify this. “When you say you are willing to take up arms, that’s what you mean?”

“Literally.”

“Against the government?”

“Yeah, literally. I mean it literally. We are not scared. We are not going to have a government that disrespects us.”

“And on what basis, under which circumstances?”

“If they respond violently to our peaceful protest.” 

It was at this point that Julius saw fit to clarify that the EFF are not a violent organisation themselves:

“We are a very peaceful organisation. We fight our battles through peaceful means, through the courts, through parliament, through mass mobilisation. We do that peacefully. But at times, government gets tempted to respond to such with violence. They beat us up in parliament and they send soldiers to places like Alexandra where people are protesting. We will run out of patience very soon and we will remove this government through the barrel of a gun.”

The interview will be aired in full on Al Jazeera this Sunday at 21:30, so strap yourselves in and give that one a watch.

[source:politicsweb]

[imagesource:telegraph]