Malema Blasts South Africans Attacking Foreigners

Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema has aimed at South Africans participating in anti-immigrant protests, challenging them to show proof that expelling foreign nationals has created a single job for locals.

Speaking at the EFF’s Workers’ Day rally in Rustenburg on Friday, Malema dismissed the ongoing demonstrations led by the March and March Movement, a group demanding the mass deportation of undocumented foreign nationals as a misguided distraction.

“Let’s ask a question: after you march and say you don’t want Zimbabweans, Nigerians, and Ghanaians, you close their shops — why are you then not telling us that you expelled 10 Zimbabweans and were able to give jobs to 10 South Africans?” Malema asked the crowd.

The firebrand opposition leader argued that the roles typically filled by migrants were ones that most South Africans did not want, describing them as low-paying and exploitative.

He maintained that what South Africans truly deserved were formal jobs with payslips, appointment letters, pension benefits, and medical aid.

Malema further contended that targeting foreign nationals amounted to a deflection from the real issue — land ownership. He noted that no Zimbabwean or Nigerian in South Africa owns land, and warned that the anti-immigrant sentiment, if left unchecked, could eventually be turned against South Africans from different ethnic groups.

The EFF leader also took strong exception to demands by anti-immigrant groups that foreign children be removed from schools and pregnant women from clinics, saying such actions mirrored the injustices of the apartheid era.

“I will never do it. I am not going to take a pregnant woman out of a clinic because she is not South African,” he said.

While conceding that some foreign nationals do commit crimes, Malema stressed that South African citizens are equally capable of criminal behaviour, and called for the law to be applied to all without discrimination.

He urged those with concerns about illegal immigration to channel their grievances through the Department of Home Affairs rather than street protests.

“Let’s deal with illegal immigration through the law,” he said.

The March and March Movement has in recent weeks led a series of nationwide demonstrations, with protesters targeting foreign-owned businesses.

The protests have drawn condemnation from the South African government, with police and the Justice Ministry both pledging crackdowns on xenophobic violence.