Archbishop Desmond Tutu said on Friday he hoped African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) president Julius Malema would have the courage to apologise for his ”kill for Zuma” comment.
But he also said older people in leadership positions had not been setting the younger generation an example of tolerance.
He told reporters in Cape Town that South Africa wanted a society where neither young nor old people used the kind of language heard in Malema’s June 16 remarks.
”I mean, when you say you’re going to kill, even when you say it’s not meant to be taken literally, it’s unacceptable.
”I would hope that he would actually end up getting the courage and the magnanimity of saying I made a mistake, sorry.”
Malema was trying to make himself look ”big and strong”.
”He’s going to be big when he says ‘I think it’s language I shouldn’t have used, and I apologise. Sorry’,” Tutu said.
The archbishop, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, said, however, he believed the older generation had been setting a bad example.
Those in leadership positions had not always provided young people with good role models.
”When you look at the kind of thing that happens in some of these [party] congresses, it’s unbelievable that people will not give one another a chance to speak.
”You would have thought that one of the things we were trying to promote in our struggle [was that] we said we are not going to allow ourselves to be dictated to, we are not going to be shouted down.
”Our young people are learning bad habits. We should have been training them …
”Now we think that shouting or using language where you are threatening people is equal to debating.”
The older generation should take part of the blame for not encouraging vigorous debate.
Malema has been widely criticised for the Youth Day speech at a rally near Bloemfontein, where he said: ”We are prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma.”
He maintained afterwards that he did not mean the statement literally, and that he never called on anyone ”to immediately take up arms”.
The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has given him until the beginning of July to retract the statement.
‘Despicable’
Meanwhile, the Young Communist League (YCL) on Friday said that demanding an apology from Malema for his ”kill for Zuma” statement was ”despicable”.
The youth wing of the South African Communist Party said it noted ”with disgust the ultimatum given to … Malema by the South African Human Rights Commission”.
”The YCL views this ultimatum as despicable and unacceptable given the fact that the ANCYL president has not appeared before the commission to justify his statement,” YCL spokesperson Castro Ngobese said in a statement.
”We believe that the commission should not be relegated into a kangaroo court and succumb to pressure from ailing and non-existing political parties.”
Holocaust
Tutu also said on Friday that the impulse behind South Africa’s recent xenophobic attacks was the same as that which led to the Holocaust.
Human beings were very good at finding scapegoats, he told a World Refugee Day media conference in Cape Town.
”And when things are not going right, you look for scapegoats. And the easiest targets for scapegoating are those who are different.
”Hitler did that, I mean that is how the Holocaust happened. Hitler said the economic woes of Germany in the 1930s were … because of this group.
”And that is why actually we’ve got to be very, very, careful with this sort of thing breaking out.”
It could become ”one of the most awful things”, he said.
Tutu also made a plea for the xenophobia refugees who have been housed in temporary camps in Gauteng and the Western Cape.
They ought not to be treated as objects, having things done and decisions taken for them.
That disempowered them, he said.
Instead they should be involved in planning, and asked what they wanted. — Sapa