The only time that ANC Youth League President Julius Malema appears to open his mouth is to change feet. On Saturday, South Africa’s court jester was singing President Robert Mugabe’s praises and threatening to bring his economic policies — the ones that made Zimbabwe the worst economy in history — back home.

Moreover, he showed that as a political leader of the country he believes implicitly that Zanufication is the way to go.

This is in reference to the fact that he continues to sing Dubula Ibhunu (Shoot the boer), despite an order from the South Gauteng High Court, rather than his risible belief in following the worst failures on the continent, the Zanu-PF.

Nowhere in Africa or indeed the world will you find a government that cares less about the criminal justice system and judiciary of their region and country than Bob and the Zanu-PF. They only follow court orders they agree with.

Their response to the SADC tribunal’s order on Zimbabwe land is a good example of the general contempt.

Yet in the category of worst timing in history, Malema has to be up there with the leading contenders with his double whammy of refusing to stop singing the song — despite farmers being murdered and a court order — and calling for land seizures on the very day that the leader of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), Eugene Terreblanche, is attacked and killed at his farm 10km outside Ventersdorp.

You’ve got to hand it to him — at a time when the ANC enjoys an almost two-thirds majority — he is single handedly doing to South Africa what it took Bob eight years to achieve in Zimbabwe: isolate the ruling party.

Perhaps the time has come for South Africa’s clown to stand back and try to understand what his actions mean on the ground.

Firstly, the policies of Zimbabwe which brought five million Zimbabweans to the brink of starvation and the country to its knees will not achieve a Zanu-PF-like mass exodus of South Africans. Unlike Zimbabwe, the local masses have nowhere to go, so once they are backed into a corner with no way out but forward, where does he think that will take them?

More importantly, who does Malema think will stand between those masses and the elite fat cats when the time comes?

It will fall to the criminal justice system and judiciary that he takes delight in spitting on and undermining every day.

Secondly, as we are witnessing now, service-delivery protests are becoming more and more frequent with the levels of violence increasing all the time. How long before they have had enough?

The tens of billions that this country wastes on Zimbabwe and corruption brings that day of reckoning closer all the time.

Who does Malema think will save him and his cronies? The army that couldn’t deal with Lesotho and goes on strike, or Bob’s army which doesn’t have enough petrol money to get here?

Thirdly, and importantly in light of Terre’blanche, the masses will now have a very powerful ally in the far right who, despite their interests being at total odds with each other, share a common enemy — the elitists of South Africa.

That far right comprises much of the military brains behind the powerful apartheid army and will give the masses the discipline and know-how to avoid a Zimbabwe repeat.

Yet on any given day the ANC stand back and watch this “candidate for the future” alienating the left, the ordinary citizens of South Africa and now the right wing.

We can only wonder at the terrible price that they will have to pay for believing that South Africa is like Zimbabwe and that anyone can just say and do whatever they feel like.

Worse, how much they will be kicking themselves when they realise that by acting like a liberation movement instead of a government, they threw away a country where they could have ruled in peace for decades.

Julius Malema cartoon thumbnail
Shoot the Boer – Wonkie CartOOn!

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Michael Trapido

Michael Trapido

Mike Trapido is a criminal attorney and publicist having also worked as an editor and journalist. He was born in Johannesburg and attended HA Jack and Highlands North High Schools. He married Robyn...

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