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ANC just when the euphoria of the ANC’s centenary celebrations has hardly died?
Interestingly, Malema has been seeing himself as the epitome of the struggle against the sidelining of blacks in their own country.
This is what is espoused in the Freedom Charter which, among other things, states that South Africans were “robbed of their birthright to land” and that “our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities.”
There are more salient points inter alia:
l The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people
l The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole
l All other industry and trade shall be controlled to assist the wellbeing of the people
l All people shall have equal rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and professions.
l The Land shall be shared among those who work it!
l Restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and land hunger.
It is a matter of public record that such ideals as spelt out in the Charter have not been achieved, with blacks faring the worst in all human development indices.
Authorities like Dr Motsoko Pheko have written copiously just how the most uneducated, economically insecure, poorest, ill-healthiest and all, are all blacks.
He has also written about the unequal distribution of land and wealth in the vast country. Importantly, Dr Pheko wrote in the New African recently to the effect that the ANC, at 100 years, was a poor shadow of its founding self.
It is a very curious fact that Malema, purporting to salve the Freedom Charter and seeking to rehumanise blacks that live in dire poverty, should be expelled from an organisation that set out to be the people’s saviour in the first place. This brings to the fore the important observation that Malema was a wrong prophet carrying the right message. His message was of the olden days, which analysts say was altered, and thus weakened, in the 1950s as blacks sought more to be accommodated on white terms than on their own just causes as the robbed and the majority.
There is little doubt that by some degree Malema was the wrong man for the message. His style of delivery was not the politest, but then, was a bit of fire and iron not required to jerk a complacent status quo?
The status quo can be categorised in two.
On one hand are the white corporatists and racists.
On the other are blacks working with, or unable to, tackle the racist corporatists.
It is unacceptable and chilling that just as the ANC was about to expel Malema a white deputy minister, Deputy Agriculture minister, Pieter Mulder, arrogantly asserted that blacks had no right to 40 percent of land as they historically had not lived in South Africa’s western regions.
Perhaps, the blacks could not be working with racists or timid per se but are guardedly calculative, to be diplomatic. It is quite vexing that he that brings the good news is bad news himself. That is, when one believes Malema is wrong.
Being young — he turned 31 on Saturday — one could have the feeling that Malema was David-like, facing problems and institutions and a system bigger than himself. If we were to expect a Davidian miracle, then the little Malema could have destroyed the whole system that he believes denies his fellow blacks a decent life.
However, he was crushed. This is simply because the party is bigger than him as is the system.
Who said the ANC was like an elephant that moves slowly but would crush an opponent decisively?
Many now think political life is all over for Malema.
It may be true. Also, you would expect David to be humble, virtuous and modest.
Malema is not. One would think of the hot-headedness and the insults and the ill-discipline and the gold watches and mansions. One would think of his saying he would unmake President Jacob Zuma the way he made him a few years ago.
Is it not being arrogant to try to reinvent Jesus’ “I will destroy the church and build it in three days”?
Even in Jesus’ day, they would not accept it.
Malema did not unmake, and will not build, another ANC in the foreseeable future. It is to be hoped that the message has been communicated enough that the oldest political movement in Africa will remain viable, vibrant and relevant.
It has to be realised that just as the bad messenger called Malema carried the right message but suffered from his disposition, the “virtues” of the present “good messengers” will not dampen the message itself.
It has already been pointed out in some circles that the expulsion of Malema is sweet news to President Zuma as the former had indeed some capacity to unmake him in the next election.
For a century-old movement, this personalisation of issues is anathema. In the first instance, it should have been the ANC that should have been identifiable with such things as nationalisation, not Malema the person — imperfect at that. The organisation owes it to its people and its founding principle to pursue nationalisation if it is for the good of the people who live in it.
(If there was any dispute in the “nationalisation” terminology what would the Charter’s “national wealth of our country . . . to the people”, for example mean?)
All said and done, there is one big irony that some believe that the demise of a bad messenger of a good message is a good step to entrench a bad system.
The likes of Mulder might be thinking as much for they do not want to live in the brotherhood and prosperity with the black majority.
Online Reporter