Malema warns rich whites of poor uprising

ANC Youth League president Julius Malema has accused white youth of shunning government events on national holidays such as Human Rights Day and Freedom Day.

Addressing the South African Union of Jewish Students at a dinner in Cape Town on Friday, Malema said: "We see very few white people on Youth Day. Maybe we should start introducing Jewish cultural activities on the (sic) Youth Day.

"Maybe we are not being accommodative of some of the things you like - but we never know how the programme should look like to attract you if you don't participate in the structures.

"It's not only you - the Indians are not there, generally minorities are not there in the activities of our government, including observing the important national days.

"But yet we want to say South Africa belongs to all who live in it. We must show it in action through our involvement," said Malema.

He called on young white people to join the ANC, saying it was the only movement that provided space for development in the country.

He warned that the rich risked being victims of a social uprising if they continued to shun the poor.

"Those of you who are rich, you are the ones who must be scared of this poverty ... We are telling you what is the reality, our people are going to rise against us.

"Those (of you) who are in Sandton, those who are in Alexandra are about to rise against you. And therefore you must be the ones who are in the forefront to liberate these people from poverty."

He lambasted South Africa's strategic economic partnership with China, saying the Chinese were the leading exploitersof Africa's raw minerals.

"People use us to get into Africa, take mineral resources, raw as they are, and leave South Africa or Africa. The Chinese are number one in doing that.

"In South Africa, the good thing we appreciate about the Chinese ... is that, politically, we are able to engage with them and, politically, we must be able to say to them, 'You are going to trade with us on condition you comply (with) our laws and you don't make political interferences.

"But, as things are now, we are not able to, because they don't just come and take our minerals, raw as they are. They also bring labour. You are literally not getting anything out of Chinese involvement.

"They bring labour, and after they bring labour, they take the minerals. At least with the colonisers (of the past), they utilised our people, although the working conditions were not better.

"But these ones, they don't give you even labour. They just open a Chinese town on their arrival and then they provide everything."