Merlyn Mwanza
South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema says Africa’s have nothing to do with the death of Queen Elizabeth of Britain, whom he said never saw it fit to apologize for the brutality of the African and other people’s by Britain.
In his recent remarks, Malama castigated the late Queen for wearing jewelry on her head that was ripped off from the African continent.
“It will be wrong of me to leave this mic without saying to Britain and everybody else who care, we do not mourn the death of a coloniser and a murderer. They came and killed our people and she’s wearing proudly stolen goods on her head. We have nothing to do with the Queen. Today people do ‘hey we mourn, hey we mourn the Queen’, “ Malema said, saying by mourning and praising Elizabeth people were celebrating colonialism. “We were not colonised by the land called Britain, we were colonised by the leadership of Britain that killed our people. So we must not be asked to do wrong things here. We are very clear a Queen does not represent anything good.”
In a statement released following Queen Elizabeth’s death, the EFF noted the death of “Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, the Queen of the United Kingdom, and the ceremonial head of state of several countries that were colonised by the United Kingdom.”
“Elizabeth ascended to the throne in 1952, reigning for 70 years as head of an institution built up, sustained, and living off a brutal legacy of dehumanization of millions of people across the world,” the statement read in part.
The EFF stated that they were not mourning Elizabeth’s death as it was a reminder of a tragic legacy in South Africa and Africa’s history, arguing that Britain took over the territory that would become South Africa in 1795 and took permanent occupancy of the territory in 1806, and from that period the native people of the land have never known peace nor have they enjoyed the fruits of the riches of their land, which he said were instilled for the enrichment of the British royal family and those who look like them.
The EFF stated that the interaction of Africans with the royal family has been that of pain and suffering, saying one of the kings killed in South Africa had his head cut off and taken to Britain as a trophy.
“It was also the British royal family that sanctioned the actions of Cecil John Rhodes who plundered this country, Zimbabwe and Zambia. It was the British Royal family that benefited from the brutalization of the people of Kenya whose valiant resistance to British colonialism invited vile responses from Britain. In Kenya, Britain built concentration camps and suppressed with such inhuman brutality the Mau Mau rebellion, killing Dedan Kimathi on 18th of February 1957, while Elizabeth was already Queen,” the statement read in part.
The EFF stated that this family plundered India via the East India Company, and it took control and oppressed the people of the Carribean islands, arguing that their thirst for riches led to the famine that caused millions of people to die in Bengal, and their “racism” led to genocide of the aboriginal people in Australia.
“Elizabeth Windsor, during her lifetime never acknowledged these crimes that Britain and her family in particular perpetrated across the world. In fact she was a proud bearer of these atrocities…during her reign when the people of Yemen rose to protest against British colonialism in 1963 Elizabeth ordered a brutal suppression of that uprising,” argued EFF, adding that Elizabeth willingly benefited from the wealth that was attained from the exploitation and murder of millions of people across the world. “The British Royal family stands on the shoulders of millions of slaves who were shipped away from the continent to serve the interests of racist white capital accumulation, at the center of which lies the British royal family. If there is really life and justice after death, may Elizabeth and her ancestors get what they deserve.”
