The chief dances to the herder's tunes

Groucho Marx famously shunned membership of any club so déclassé as to have him. Julius Malema has found his own unique solution to the burdens of club membership.

There is nothing like a restrictive dress code or censure for conduct unbecoming for JuJu. His remedy is simply to toss the fusty old rule book out the window and hold a gun to the doddery chairman’s bald pate.

In short order, the African National Congress Youth League’s president has called for regime change in Botswana, launched what a minister calls a ‘reckless debate’ on nationalisation, and gleefully endorsed the description of a particularly irksome editor as ‘a black snake in the grass’ who, in the good old days of matchbox liberation, would by now ‘probably have had a burning tyre around her neck’.

The world should quiver. An ANCYL declaration of war on South Africa’s ‘imperialist’ enemies might well be imminent. These are nations with which it notes ‘with concern’ the ANC leadership, currently in the thrall of ‘strange ideological trends’ has established political relations ‘for convenience’.

The ANC of old did use to have a party constitution and some rules that it expected its members to abide by. One thinks specifically of Rule 5.2.f (observing discipline and carrying out loyally the decisions of higher ANC bodies); 16.1 (the ANC president’s role in outlining and explaining the policy and attitude of the party on any issue); 25.1.a (abiding with the decisions of higher structures); 25.1.d-f (bringing the ANC into disrepute, encouraging racism or intolerance, and enrichment through possible abuse of office; and 25.5.0 (prejudicing the repute or operational capacity of the ANC).

That’s not an exhaustive list, but then one is not a member of the ANC’s evidently cowed national executive committee. Anyone in the ANC leadership with a spinal column and some stomach would assuredly be able to identify other disciplinary infractions by Malema and his rampant cohorts, including some that he is already on probation for.

The sticking point is at the apex of the ANC where Jacob Zuma, president of both his party and the nation, lacks the courage to take on the increasingly belligerent and audacious ANCYL. Stalled by ambitions for a second term – and not reflecting overmuch on the many lost opportunities of his first — Zuma is in thrall to only one factor: the effect that Malema could have on his chances on re-election.

While a politician has to have power in order to exercise it, the pursuit of a second term has become the major factor in Zuma’s presidency, driving every decision taken, every move made. This is not even vaguely the calibre of leadership that SA needs at the moment.

Zuma’s reluctance to act against Malema because it might weaken him in advance of the party’s 2012 leadership conference has, paradoxically, probably hurt him more than a firm stance from the outset would have done. While Malema has gone from one outrageous triumph to another, gathering at his heels a growing feral band of baying comrades, Zuma in contrast appears indecisive and cowed. It’s the laughable spectacle of the chief tripping to the tune of the herdsman.

Zuma must surely want more from his presidency than to slink into history through the back door as the ineffectual seat-warmer for a Malema-designated successor. If so, he needs to shake off the Malema-induced blue funk that is paralysing him.

As for the plans of the ANCYL ‘command team’ to topple Botswana president Ian Khama’s government of ‘imperialist puppets’; the facts are that Botswana has been a democracy for almost three times longer than SA and outscores SA on virtually every credible indicator on democratic governance and human development.

It is likely that all Botswana would most want to learn from SA is how not to do things.