The president and commander in chief of the EFF, commissars and fighters, Deputy Speaker ... President, I stand here on behalf of the EFF for the very first time to respond to your stale, empty and meaningless state of the nation address. [Interjections.] Today, 25 years after the attainment of political freedom, the face of poverty, landlessness, unemployment, homelessness, poor health and abuse is still largely black. It is young and is most likely, women. In your address you only mentioned this identity once.
Mr President, you have sold your soul to the captains of industry who are wholly white and men. In return, you have made it your mission to sell dreams to the people on whose ticket you now occupy office. While you are dreaming sir, black youth are unemployed or languishing in jail because of your failure to secure their future. Black grandmothers are raped daily, with a lower than two per cent chance of ever finding justice. Black people in general are still landless. They do not have the luxury to dream as your white-gotten wealth allows you to.
I am infuriated by your tone-deaf attitude to thousands of lesbian women who are subjected to corrective rape and who face their tormentors in the streets because our criminal justice system cannot protect those who sex differently.
Mr President, your government is responsible for many, and the most heinous of crimes. You jailed Kanya Cekeshe; you jailed Bonginkosi Khanyile and are complicit in the brutal murders of Benjamin Phehla and Bongani Madonsela just because they asked for the free education that you promised them when they were still toddlers in 1994. [Applause.] You have over a million students across all universities but you can only accommodate under 130 000 students. Where must the rest stay? [Interjections.]