WeeklySA_Adminwith Sy Makaringe
A PEACETIME FREEDOM FIGHTER
MAKE BELIEVE: Julius Malema has deep-seated anger over the glorious struggle past he was sadly not part of
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema curses the day he was born.
That is not because he was dropped on his head after he emerged from his mother’s womb in the presence of his now-deceased grandmother, Sarah, in Seshego, Polokwane, Limpopo, on that fateful day of 3 March 1981.
His paternity is not even the subject of his deep-seated anger, not by a long shot. It is actually irrelevant.
The real reason he is bitter and angry about his date of birth is because he believes it came several decades too late for him. In other words, he reckons he was born long after his time.
This date of 3 March 1981 places him, as a political animal, way outside the era that produced renowned struggle stalwarts such as Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Robert Sobukwe, Steve Biko, Chris Hani, Zephania Mothopeng, AP Mda and a whole lot of others.
He is bitter because his belated birth has denied him the martyrdom he craves for, as well as the opportunity to be counted among the heroes and heroines of our liberation struggle.
It frustrates him that he cannot rewind the clock by several years to place his birth at the time when apartheid repression was at its peak. If that were possible, it would allow him to skip the country, too, to undergo military training under the banner of uMkhonto we Sizwe, the ANC’s military wing, in Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique or other African states. If he was brave enough, as he professes to be, he would probably also be sent to undergo military training in the Soviet Union or Cuba.
The fact that he was not there at the height of the 1976 Soweto uprising, to at least have had the opportunity to throw an odd stone at a passing police vehicle, burn a tyre or hurl a petrol bomb, troubles his mind no end.
It also does not sit well with him that he only gets to know about detentions without trial and the incarceration of political prisoners on Robben Island from history books. He feels the lack of personal experiences of all of this – thanks to his belated date of birth – makes him less of a politician.
The reason he has no qualms calling elders like President Cyril Ramaphosa, former finance ministers Trevor Manuel and Tito Mboweni, Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe, the late former public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan – men old enough to be his father – by their first names is because he believes they would have been his peers had his birth not been delayed by so many years.
He thinks the fighting spirit raging within him, real or imagined, has not been used to good effect because of this, hence he had to find an outlet to vent.
However, no one had use of it anyway because at the time black people finally freed themselves from the shackles of apartheid, Malema was only 13 years old. The train had long left the station.
There were no more guerilla fights to be fought and no more liberation struggles to be waged. But, determined to gain liberation hero status at all cost, Malema created his own liberation struggle in his own world of make believe.
That is what led him and his erstwhile ally, Floyd Shivambu, to form a phoney, peacetime guerilla army called Economic Freedom Fighters with its phoney military ranks and old-fashioned terms such as commander-in-chief, central command, commanders, commissars, ground forces, etc.
However, what all this has sadly done, despite his best efforts, is to make him a peacetime hero or, more succinctly, a peacetime freedom fighter.
FIGHTER OR EMPTY VESSEL?
Julius Malema always portrays himself as a ruthless street fighter who is capable of beating the daylights out of anyone who challenges his authority or undermines him.
“I’m not scared of you”, “You can’t do anything”, “You’re a small boy”, “I will kill you”, “No white man will beat me up”, and “I’m not shaken” are some of the threatening terms he has used in EFF rallies, press conferences, National Assembly and even in the Pan African Parliament to demonstrate his purported invincibility.
A quick fact check, however, reveals that Julius Sello Malema has never killed anyone, let alone beating the daylights of an opponent ever since he came into the national limelight.
Warning to Gogo Sarah’s beloved grandson: be careful about what you wish for, because it might just happen to you.
DON’T DISTURB, I’M ON A GRAVY TRAIN
One thing you cannot go wrong about the gravy train is that once you are on it, man, you are on it. You hang on it with your life, no matter how critical you might have been about it in the past.
Ask John Steenhuisen, Siviwe Gwarube and Solly Malatsi, three of the Democratic Alliance’s leaders who have tasted the delicious gravy on the train after President Cyril Ramaphosa handed them ministerial posts when he announced his Cabinet under the Government of National Unity (GNU) a few months ago.
When it emerged that Ramaphosa was going to sign the contentious Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Bill, the noise coming out of the DA was that the party would walk away from the GNU if the president went ahead.
But Gwarube, the Minister of Basic Education, was the first to break rank, saying she would implement the act “with no fear or favour” once Ramaphosa had signed the bill. Although she boycotted the signing ceremony, she had already made her intentions very clear: she was not leaving the gravy train anytime soon.
On the eve of Ramaphosa’s signing of the bill, Steenhuisen, the Minister of Agriculture, suddenly softened his stance, saying the Bela Act could not be the basis for ditching the GNU, which was after all going to mean stripping him of his fat salary and generous perks that come with his ministerial post.
As for Malatsi, the Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, his silence on this and other issues has been deafening. He has steered away from controversy and from his radical colleagues in the party ever since he was appointed into the Cabinet.
Unconfirmed reports say he has even hung a “PLEASE DON’T DISTURB” sign on the outside of his office (or is it train?) door to keep troublemaking Helen Zille at bay.
WAKE UP, IT’S 2024
In my book, Khumbul’ekhaya is the best reality TV show the world over.
For me Big Brother Africa, Real Housewives of Johannesburg, All You Need is Love, Date My Family, Uyajola 9/9, Survivor South Africa, you name them, do not come close as far as telling true, real life human stories is concerned.
Khumbul’ekhaya (Remember Home), which made its TV debut on SABC1 in 2006, tells the story of how the migrant labour system and urbanisation to a large extent have brutally separated fathers from their sons, daughters from their mothers.
It relates stories, in a raw and tear-jerking fashion, about human tenacity and resilience in the face of adversity, economic deprivation and social injustice.
Its ace investigators have over the past 17 years crisscrossed the lengths and breadths of the country in their attempt to trace and reunite long lost relatives, many of whom had not even met each other in their lives.
Andile Gaelesiwe is brilliant as the presenter of the show, which is now in its 17th episode.
One thing, though! Would someone politely whisper into the producers’ ears that we are now in the year 2024, a digital and AI era?
Many viewers who watch the show, especially those of the 2000 stock, have never seen a fax machine in their lives simply because it was rendered obsolete even before they were born. Neither do they have the time to go to the Post Office to post a letter.
So, asking them, or anyone else for that matter, to send you a fax or post a letter to you is akin to expecting them to draw blood from a stone.
EISH, THIS ENGRISH!
“We need to document them, my brother, because they are here. Do you know what they do in December? They go and hand themselves in Lindela [repatriation centre outside Krugersdorp] so that they can go and eat Christmas at home.” -– Julius Malema speaking on the EFF’s open border policy during Clement Manyathela’s Face The Nation show on SABC Channel 404 on Tuesday.
