Vavi needs context to compare Malema with Mandela

“[Mandela] came as a very militant leader of the Youth League. He turned tables around, he was absolutely as intolerant in a way to our leaders as Julius Malema is now. [Mandela] moved from being that difficult and militant to being an icon, and one of the most admired leaders worldwide. Who knows, the Julius Malema that is being condemned now may just grow up and become the icon of the world going forward.” ( Cosatu general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi )

It would be naïve and unfair to dismiss Vavi’s views as merely the speculative ramblings of an alliance partner endorsing the next generation of ANC leadership. In truth, there are many similarities between the early life of one of the planet’s greatest leaders, former president Nelson Mandela and ANC Youth League president Julius Malema. What is needed, however, is to put those similarities into context if any meaningful comparison is to be made.

The ANCYL was formed in 1944, a year before the end of World War II, by inter alia Anton Lembede, Madiba, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu and Ashley Mda. This period, just before the National Party took power, was a time of miners’ strikes, demands that returning black soldiers be given equal treatment and commencement of the anti-pass campaign. In 1948 that all changed with the arrival of the National Party and the racial discriminatory laws of apartheid.

This political shift resulted in the ANC, and primarily the leaders emerging from the ANCYL, seeking a far more militant approach to resolving the issues that had now been visited upon them. In 1949, led by ANCYL youngsters such as Madiba and Sisulu, the then moderate ANC president Alfred Bitini Xuma — I shit you not — was ousted in favour of the more bellicose Doctor James Sebe Moroka. Of course, at that time ANCYL leaders like Madiba and Tambo (former president Mbeki joined the ANCYL in 1956) were seen as young, aggressive upstarts who had occasioned the fall of the ANC president. (Sound familiar?)

Madiba started to get intensely politically active from 1948 onwards, which saw him become part of the defiance campaign and the drafting of the Freedom Charter in the 1950s and later the formation of Umkhonto weSizwe in the early 1960s. This would lead to his trial and imprisonment for 27 years. In his famous “I am prepared to die speech” ) we are left in no doubt that this lawyer, freedom fighter and politician was risking his life to overcome a barbaric system that had caused great suffering to his people. In essence he would not only risk his life time and time again to try to bring about a free and just society, but languish in prison for the better part of three decades rather than bow down to racism and hatred.

He is a leader that is much loved by the vast majority of South Africans and the planet and who is sure to go down in history as one of the world’s greatest statesmen.

If we are to compare like with like then we must take Julius Malema from his becoming president of the ANCYL in April 2008. In terms of his earlier career there is a nice article by Don Makitile, which appeared in the Sowetanlast year. For the purposes hereof, however, we need to place Malema in 2008 where Madiba was in 1944, ie. at the forefront of the ANCYL.

The differences in their ages at the relevant point in time is, to my mind, irrelevant, as is their education and upbringing, which would I’m sure fascinate sociologists, psychologists and many other …ologists. The fact that one was a lawyer brought up in a family of chiefs and the other through single parenting or otherwise merely conveys the paths they travelled to bring them to their destiny in those years of 1944 and 2008 onwards. Of course, it might explain why Madiba achieved a world view early on, while Malema is still finding his way, but, for me, it is the circumstances surrounding them in those years which are vital to this comparison.

As we saw above, South Africa 1944 was not a pleasant place to live if you were a black South African. You were at a major disadvantage in terms of work, schooling, freedom of movement and all the rest of the discrimination apartheid became famous for. By 1948 you were in serious trouble if you dared to speak out against the white minority government. In that environment Madiba helped to build the ANCYL, the ANC, Freedom Charter and Umkhonto before his departure for Robben Island.

In 2008, when Malema became ANCYL president, South Africa was a multiracial democracy, then being governed by members of the ANC, and black people were the beneficiaries of racial policies such as affirmative action and BEE. A country in which everyone was free to pursue whatever path they chose without the threat of death or imprisonment for expressing your views (mercifully I would suggest in Malema’s case).

Of course, as president of the ANCYL Malema was almost expected to try to be more militant than his predecessor, which has become something of a tradition within the organisation. That said, short of his successor exiting his inauguration as president and opening fire with an AK47 on the crowd outside, it is hard to see how this can be achieved.

This does not explain or justify his outrageous comments about leaders and elders across the political spectrum on an ongoing basis. Worse still, he has threatened to kill for an individual, thereby placing Zuma above the interests of party and country.

Accordingly, stupidity without any hope of redemption; how could he ever be compared to Madiba?

Or could he?

There is another way of looking at this which makes Malema’s actions parallel to those of the early Madiba. Leave aside the outrageous comments, everyone’s preconceived ideas about him and think along the following lines. The ANCYL, Cosatu, SACP and ANC left wing went to “war” with the Mbeki faction at Polokwane in December 2007. The purpose was to unseat Mbeki as ANC president because the left wing believed that the centrist faction had failed to deliver up to its promises of transforming the masses of this country. Yes, Mbeki had achieved much during his tenure but this group felt that it was far too little and far too slowly.

Without raising all the same old issues the Mbeki faction post-Polokwane hit back and hard. No prisoners were being taken and the mud and dockets were flying. Into this maelstrom in April 2008 steps Malema and starts having a full go at primarily the president of the country, Cabinet and the centrist ANC, who still just happen to have their hands firmly on the controls of power.

Accordingly, while Madiba might have been facing a hostile white government in 1944 onwards, Malema was facing a very angry majority black government in 2008 on whose toes he began treading without any regard for his own safety. Where Madiba had fought racism, Malema was at war with poverty and lack of transformation.

Never underestimate the powerful interests that Malema was attacking at the time. They were just as vested and uncompromising as those faced by Madiba. The only difference is that in Malema’s battle it was not a simple case of black versus white, so your enemies might be that much harder to identify.

Many South Africans believe that the ANC has been guilty of corruption, elitism, cronyism and a failure to deliver on the promises that it made to the electorate at the last election. Believe it or not this is exactly what the ANC left wing and its allies, including Malema, have been alleging as well; Malema simply being the most vociferous of them.

The danger to Malema’s safety in 2008, like Madiba from 1944 onwards, is very real. His war on poverty is to him as racism was to Madiba. The fact that Madiba did not have a hoard of journalists waiting for every comment and his next Malemaism does not mean that in those early years everyone believed he was a wonderful guy. I’m sure the comments back then were just as brutal and hateful as those we are seeing now. Just not as well publicised.

Of course Malema will have to go travel a long and arduous path if he is to come anywhere near the overall achievements of Madiba, but that does not mean that he does not compare to Madiba at this stage — he does.