Justice Malala on the ANC youth leader whose support is surging
despite defeat in the high court
Justice Malala
Friday September 16 2011
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/15/justice-malala-on-julius-malema
Three years ago the final school results of the leader of the African
National Congress's Youth League, Julius Malema, were leaked on the
internet and subsequently published by the press. They showed that the
firebrand had achieved a G in woodwork, and had performed even more
dismally in other subjects.
South Africa was united in its laughter. Cartoons and email jokes
hopped between offices. Malema, whose English was not what one could
call polished, did not help matters by launching a personal attack on
the accent of the education minister ? and then being forced into a
grovelling apology.
In 2009, he launched a campaign to nationalise mines and expropriate
white land without compensation, which was consistently contradicted
by leaders of his own party and ridiculed in the press.
Malema was not a force to be reckoned with, the consensus was.
That was then. Yesterday, the "buffoon" of South African politics was
named as one of Africa's 10 most powerful young men by international
business magazine Forbes.
"The ANCYL wields enormous power in South African politics, and played
a pivotal role in the election of incumbent president, Jacob Zuma,
during the 2009 presidential elections," Forbes said.
It is not far off the mark. Malema has come from nowhere and, in just
three years since his controversial election in 2008 as ANC Youth
League president, has inserted himself at the very centre of debate
about South Africa's future political direction. On the two touchiest
issues in South Africa ? macro-economic policy and race relations ?
Malema is the central player .
This week, after a high court judge ruled that Malema's favourite
struggle song, "Dubhula iBhunu" ("Shoot the Boer") constituted hate
speech and was therefore banned, Malema slammed the judiciary, saying
it was being used as a "back door" to usher apartheid back in.
"We're being subjected again to white minority approval of what we
must do and we cannot allow that," he said. "The oppressor has gained
too much confidence and we allowed that space. We have reached a time
[when] we must place the oppressor where he belongs."
Malema does not make just white people ? and many middle-class black
people ? jittery. His call for the nationalisation of mines,
expropriation of white land without compensation and an overhaul of
the economy to benefit the poor have already noticeably chilled
investor sentiment towards South Africa. According to a UN report in
2011, South Africa's share of foreign direct investment fell 70% last
year from 2009.
Malema has become what his growing number of supporters call an
"unstoppable tsunami", a phrase once used to describe Zuma as he made
his bid to unseat Thabo Mbeki from office. Many say he has become too
popular and too powerful to rein in.
Malema is in a titanic struggle with Zuma, who once declared him a
future president, and has been brought before the ANC's disciplinary
committee on charges of bringing the party into disrepute. This is
after he said the league would send a team to neighbouring Botswana to
consolidate opposition parties and to help bring about regime change,
as the government there was "in full co-operation with imperialists".
These are not Malema's only troubles. He has faced intense media
scrutiny and exposure of his lavish lifestyle. He has more than eight
known properties, recently demolished a 3.6m rand (?308,000) house and
is building a new one valued at 16m rand with a bunker, and is mocked
for his flashy cars and collection of watches. The "economic freedom
fighter", as he calls himself, is being investigated by the revenue
services, the office of the public protector and the elite crime-
fighting unit, the Hawks.
Yet Malema's influence continues to grow and his travails are watched
with interest. It is an extraordinary journey for a young man (he is
only 30), who was born and raised in poverty in one of South Africa's
poorest provinces, Limpopo. In the foreword to a new book (An
Inconvenient Youth: Julius Malema and the "new" ANC) by Irish
journalist Fiona Forde, philosopher and political scientist Achille
Mbembe writes that one of the main tensions in South African politics
today is the realisation that there is something unresolved in the
constitutional democratic settlement that suspended the "revolution"
in 1994 but did not erase apartheid from the social, economic and
mental landscape.
"It is the stalemate Malema would like to puncture," Mbembe writes.
"It is in the failure of the South African government and society to
build creatively on the extraordinary rupture, or promise, of 1994 and
radically confront black poverty that Malema sees his political
opportunity.
"His ascendancy highlights the current dangers South Africa faces: a
gradual closing of life chances for many; an increasing polarisation
of the racial structure; a structure of indecision at the heart of
politics itself; and a re-balkanisation of culture and society."
Mbembe's assessment comes within the backdrop of an increasingly
unequal South Africa. University of Cape Town economics professor
Haroon Bhorat said in 2009 that South Africa overtook Brazil as the
country with the widest gap between rich and poor.
This explains Malema's massive popularity in shack settlements, where
he is feted as a saviour of the poor. Last weekend, he drove from his
home in the plush Johannesburg suburb of Sandton, known as the
shopping mecca of the continent, to Alexandra township, one of the
poorest places in South Africa. He was his usual radical self.
"Anybody who says we have contravened an ANC policy by saying they
[whites] have stolen the land, they must tell us which policy we
contravened," he told the crowd.
Malema has crafted his campaign for "economic freedom in our lifetime"
as a struggle similar to that waged by Nelson Mandela and his comrades
to radicalise an ANC that would not take up the armed struggle in the
1950s even as apartheid became increasingly entrenched and bitter. In
the squatter camp on Saturday, he cast himself as a martyr: "If we
have come to the end, let it be so. If you are angry with Julius,
don't destroy the ANC Youth League. It doesn't belong to Julius ? but
because you do not come from the youth league, because you know
nothing about the politics of the ANC, you want to destroy the work of
Nelson Mandela."
He then cut a cake delivered in a Porsche by a celebrity known for
eating sushi off naked women. The crowd loved it.
This is part of the contradiction of Malema. Even as he is vilified by
the press for his association with crass celebrities and the flaunting
of his incredible wealth with inexplicable origins, ordinary people
say "what's wrong with Juju making money". In him, many see
themselves. In him, many see a man who takes on an untransformed South
Africa and champions their cause.
"His popularity is not unlike that of Robert Mugabe," says Forde, who
had unfettered access to him until she started asking difficult
questions. "Democrat or demagogue? I think he is a demagogue."
For the next few days, though, all eyes will be on whether Malema is
suspended or expelled from the ANC. Whatever decision is made about
him, it will determine whether he participates in the ANC's Mangaung
conference in December 2012. The ANC Youth League has already made it
clear that it demands "generational change", meaning that the older
generation of ANC leaders must make way for a younger breed.
Zuma is one of those the league wants to see replaced. If he loses
this week's battle to Malema, then he has no chance of a second term
and the ANC faces a radically changed future, largely scripted by a
young man who came from nowhere to refashion the ANC of Mandela.
Malema's chances cannot be under-estimated. Zuma has already failed to
rein him in once, when Malema shrugged off charges in 2010. Like Zuma
when he was facing corruption charges, many are now saying Malema is
the ANC's new "man with nine lives".
His fate is not his alone. It is South Africa's too.
guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2011
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