ANC Youth League president Julius Malema described himself as a defender of women and said he would never promote hatred towards them, when he testified in the Equality Court in Johannesburg on Monday.
”I am a defender of women, I am an activist. The latest woman I defended was the golden girl who was subject to harassment,” he said, referring to athletics gold medallist Caster Semenya.
”I don’t have a history in my personal life, political life, of promoting hatred to women.”
The Sonke Gender Justice Network laid a complaint of hate speech, harassment and unfair discrimination against him following a remark he made at the Cape Peninsula Technikon in January during election campaigning.
”Those who had a nice time will wait until the sun comes out, request breakfast and ask for taxi money. In the morning, that lady requested breakfast and taxi money,” he said of President Jacob Zuma’s rape accuser.
Malema’s lawyer Tumi Mokwena succeeded in having the unfair discrimination charge dismissed on Monday, but magistrate Colleen Collis felt there was a prima facie aspect to the hate speech and harassment part of the complaint, so Malema was obliged to testify.
Mokwena had argued that the context of his comments were not taken into account.
Before Malema could begin his testimony, supporters of both Malema and the network, who had held parallel protests outside, had to leave the court after the network’s lawyer complained about an outburst by one of Malema’s supporters.
During an adjournment one woman, with home-made earrings bearing Jacob Zuma’s image, threatened to sue anyone who mentioned Zuma’s name in the court — seemingly unaware that Malema’s defence was that he was making fair comment based on the judgement that acquitted Zuma of rape in 2006.
At one point she leaned on one of the court tables and, facing the network’s Mbuyiselo Botha, demanded to know whether he was lodging the complaint for money, referring to the R50 000 the network wanted from Malema and which they intended using to build a women’s shelter.
Neither Malema nor the league’s leadership intervened during the outburst.
Malema (28) began by tracing his political history, saying this began when he was 10. He went on to give an overview of the ANC and its youth league’s commitment to gender equality, and said it had held a gender awareness conference over the past weekend.
He said his grandmother raised him after his mother died and he was nurtured by women, including former ANC Women’s League president Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
”My mother passed away … my only parent was my grandmother. So there is no way I would have hatred to women who have contributed so much to my own upbringing. I would never engage in an exercise that seeks to undermine or harass women.”
He said the comments he made were in reply to a question about Zuma’s suitability for president, given the rape case in a pre-election atmosphere of negativity and ”de-campaigning”.
He had spoken about how the ANC did not tolerate crime.
”Anyone who is found guilty of rape could not lead an ANC structure. And the same included President Jacob Zuma,” he said.
”If he was found guilty he was not going to be our candidate.”
Referring to his controversial comment, Malema said he had described, in terms of what he could recall from the judgement in Zuma’s rape case, that a victim of rape would not behave in a particular way — that she would not stay overnight, nor ask for taxi money.
Earlier Mokwena said the judgement also mentioned that the rape accuser had sent Zuma ”kiss SMSs” before the incident.
Alluding to earlier testimony by Lisa Vetten of the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre — that the woman neither asked for taxi money nor breakfast, — Malema said he had tried his ”level best” to interpret and remember what was said during the judgement.
He had reiterated that people needed to respect the judgement and had also said ”women who lie and report rape under false pretexts will not advance the struggle against rape”.
People had cheered him at the technikon and, he said: ”Even when I left I didn’t get a sense that I tried to harass.”
Malema said he believed the matter was selectively reported by newspapers.
After the matter was postponed to September 21 for cross-examination, Malema made a brief appearance on the back of a bakkie outside the court.
He said any apology to the ”reactionary forces” who lodged the complaint would be hard won.
”We don’t apologise easily, we fight,” he said. – Sapa