Zuma’s rabble rouser becomes major headache with his tune

When BBC journalist Jonah Fisher walked into the African National Congress head office at Luthuli House on Friday, he was seeking news. He ended up making news—for asking the “wrong” question.

Journalists who attended the press conference ended up reporting on how Mr Fisher faced the wrath of an ANC firebrand with a rough-edged tongue, friends in high office and big money.

Mr Julius Malema, the ANC youth leader described Mr Fisher as “bastard,” “bloody agent” and “small boy”, and ordered him out.

Mr Malema had criticised Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change for speaking out against his visit to Harare at last week from its office in Sandton, a rich Johanneburg suburb, when Fisher mentioned that the youth leader also lived there. The fiery -tempered Malema was not amused.

“This is not a newsroom. This is the building of a revolutionary party. “Here you behave or else you jump,” he charged. “Don’t come here with that white tendency. You are a small boy, you can’t do anything. Go out, bastard. You bloody agent,” he shouted.

The journalist could not take it lying down. “That’s rubbish. That’s absolute rubbish,” he responded.

Malema continued: “ Rubbish is what you have covered in that trouser.” Mr Fisher packed his equipment and left.

This is not his first altercation with the media. Last year, he was angered by journalists who questioned the source of his wealth and accused them of banking lots of money for writing or not writing stories and sleeping with politicians.

“We know who receives brown envelopes where, who sleeps with who where, who drinks with who until seven in the morning revealing everything.”

Malema’s story is a cobweb of controversy, rebellion and high drama, probably a tragi-comedy. The youngman has broken every rule in the book. He does not sit in President Jacob Zuma’s Cabinet, but he is one of the most influential figures in South Africa.

At 29, Malema, a Zuma ally, is as obstinate, vulgar and rebellious as they come. Banners at his birthday in February called him “President Julius Malema”.

He brooks no opposition and seems to derive pleasure in stepping on everybody’s toes with impunity, through personal attacks and inflammatory statements.

His name evokes admiration and fear in equal measure. Even some state security agencies treat him with caution. Traffic policemen cannot arrest him for speeding because of fear.

In February, a South African paper reported that he owns a black Mercedes-Benz AMG, an Aston Martin and two Range Rover Sports, all without number plates. He lives large. His Breitling watch is worth about R250 000(Sh2.5million).

Some of his compatriots think he is a reckless demagogue. Others see him as an ill-bred, ill-educated baby monster, a populist with a perchance for controversy who must be tamed “before it is too late.”

Yet for others—including his president— he is a hero, a chubby, nice young man who can be South Africa’s next leader.

But what is disturbing to many South Africans is a feeling that President treats him with kid gloves. Mr Malema campaigned vigorously for Mr Zuma in the April 2009 elections, and its felt that the president is in some way indebted to him. This has sparked conversations that many of his outrageous comments may be coming from higher up in the ANC.

A columnist in a South African newspaper describes him as “Zuma’s rubble rouser with the potential of a future dictator.”

To his admirers, Mr Malema is the embodiment of the dreams of many young South Africans— mostly uneducated and poor— struggling to re-assert their place and voice in the post-apartheid era.

Mr Malema has been in the news for the past two weeks after mainstream opposition parties linked him to last Saturday’s killing of white supremacist Eugene Terreblanche.

The parties blamed the murder on sentiments fuelled by Malema’s through favourite anti-apartheid song Ayasab’ Amagwala (The cowards are scared) containing the lyrics “Shoot the Boer” (Dubul’ ibhunu. “Boer” is the Afrikaans word for “farmer”, but is also used as a derogatory term for whites.
Terreblanche’s killing sparked of protests by white farmers.

However, the ANC has rejected any link between the song and the murder. Mr Malema also rejected a link between the killing and the song.

A court had ordered Mr Malema to stop singing the hate song but he won’t stop.

It is said that Malema, is taking lessons from ANC elders. During election campaigns, President Zuma, himself a gifted singer and dancer, thrilled audiences with his apartheid era anthem Umshini wami” (Bring Me My Machine-Gun). Borrowing from him, Mr Malema has taken up Ayasab’ Amagwala.

Two days after Terreblanche’s killing, Malema flew to Zimbabwe and defended singing of the song, which he sung numerous times while there.

He defended President Robert Mugabe’s human rights record and the seizure of farms from white farmers.

He called for Zimbabwe-style seizure of mines and farms in South Africa.

“In SA we are just starting. Here in Zimbabwe you are already very far.”

“We want the mines. They have been exploiting our minerals for a long time.”

President Zuma belatedly reprimanded him yesterday. A number of bloggers were quick to point out that the reprimand came too late. But it not surprising.

During Mr Zuma’s legal troubles, which his allies blame on a plot by then President Thabo Mbeki, the firebrand said: “We’re prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma”.

And when Mr Zuma was accused of rape, Malema suggested that the accuser had had a “nice time” with him because in the morning she “requested breakfast and taxi money”.

The statement attracted widespread condemnation but no action was taken against him. Mr Malema’s influence in the party became apparent when he openly asked Mr Mbeki to resign.

And when nobody contemplated it, he declared that Mr Mbeki will be sacked before the end of his second term.

“We will have Mbeki removed. We don’t fight to lose. He is going,” he said in September 2008. The ANC recalled Mr Mbeki afew days later.

Because of his position and protection the son of a single mother, spares no one. He is a rich dictionary of insults.

He has called Helen Zille, the DA leader, an “apartheid spy”, a “little racist girl, imperialist” and “satanist”.

“She hit back by describing Malema as an “inkwenkwe”, a derogatory Xhosa word referring to an uncircumcised boy.

Newspaper columnist Rebekah Kendal blames ANC and the country’s ugly past for Mr Malema’s attitude.

She says the current ANC membership celebrates militancy, shuns education and follows populist leaders blindly, regardless of their dubious moral choices and glaringly apparent inadequacies.”

She says Mr Malema “wears his politicised youth on his sleeve like a badge of honour.”

A member of the ANC’s Young Pioneers Mashupatsela programme, by the age of nine, Malema was receiving military training.

According to Kendal, at a time when South Africa was beginning its period of reconciliation, Malema was learning the rhetoric of militancy.

And like all child soldiers, she notes, he was indoctrinated with a default system of revenge, resolution through violence and paranoia of the unseen enemy.

President Zuma has urged South Africans to be patient with Mr Malema and understand that he is young and still needs guidance. Maybe.