Despite having had 16 years to adapt, the African National Congress still has to get to grips with democracy’s separation of party and state. Instead, ANC interests are invariably paramount and it views even the sabotage of South Africa’s national interest as less reprehensible than badmouthing its leader.
The nominal disciplining of ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema is a case in point. Malema’s most serious offences were to ignore a High Court ruling, abuse the judiciary, and damage the SA government’s mediation efforts in Zimbabwe.
Malema should answer to these charges because they have an impact on matters of national importance. Less important was his tirade against a “bastard” and “bloody agent” BBC correspondent, and then ejecting him from a press conference.
Crass though this was, journalists are accustomed to dealing with megalomaniacs and have their own quiet ways of exacting revenge. It is, in any case, in SA’s interest that that the ANC — once portrayed in the international media as approaching secular sainthood — is exposed for its growing intolerance and racism.
At the ANC hearing, however, Malema’s attack on the judiciary did not even merit a charge. In similar vein, his singing ‘kill the boer’ was assessed not as contempt of court, but ‘defiance of the ANC leadership’, which had asked for restraint while the High Court ruling was appealed.
This latter charge as well as those of undermining SA’s efforts in Zimbabwe on behalf of the African Union, was dropped as part of a plea bargain. So, too, was that of ‘bringing the ANC into disrepute’, by abusing the BBC journalist. That left Malema facing a single charge — of comparing President Jacob Zuma with ex-president Thabo Mbeki — to which he pleaded guilty.
SA’s president is so insecure that he feels ‘insulted’ and his ‘stature undermined’ because Malema suggested that Zuma’s rebuke of ANCYL loutishness was as harsh as Mbeki once was. This is beyond comedy — it is in the sad realm of pathological emotional impairment.
For this supposedly heinous crime Malema was fined R10 000 — a sum that the young tenderpreneur has probably trousered a thousandfold during his spectacularly rapid accumulation of wealth– and more significantly, was ordered to apologise and attend political re-education classes. It is further measure of the man that the ANCYL is trying to extract the money to pay for the fine from its members in the form of ‘voluntary’ donations.
Malema’s five-paragraph mea culpa is uncomfortably reminiscent of those grovelling pleadings favoured in the Communist show-trials. The main intention of such formulaic penitence is the public humiliation of the party member concerned to serve as a salutary warning to others, while simultaneously extolling the wisdom and mercy of the party.
Malema apologises fulsomely to the ‘president of the ANC and the republic’ for not only undermining comrade Zuma’s stature but possibly also ‘undermining the confidence our people in the leadership of the ANC.’ Malema then quotes from an ANC policy document that ‘an abiding quality of leadership is to learn from mistakes, to appreciate weaknesses and to correct them.’ He concludes, ‘I have learnt from this mistake and therefore submit myself to the discipline of the ANC.’
This is not much different from the rituals of repentance and forgiveness that some Christian churches demand of their congregants. All that is missing from the ANC’s fatherly but stern rebuke of the Kiddie Wing’s leader is three Hail Marys and an injunction to go forth and sin no more.
It is mind boggling that the governing party in a modern democracy believes that this charade was the best way to deal with a senior office-bearer’s acts of lawlessness, racism, and damaging interference in the country’s foreign policy.
Time magazine recently voted Malema one of its ‘Morons of 2010′. They are quite wrong. He is as sly as a jackal and gets away with it yet again. And if anything gives notice of Malema’s cheerful indifference to the niceties of process, it is that the ANCYL now wants to appeal the ANC disciplinary tribunal’s ruling, despite the fact that Malema had pleaded guilty.
There are many, many men and women of integrity within the ANC, especially in the middle ranks. However is interesting (in the Chinese way) that Malema was “cleared of the main charges, which included singing the “Kill the Boer” song in defiance of ANC directives, endorsing Zanu-PF and attacking the Movement for Democratic Change as a “Mickey Mouse party” during his visit to Zimbabwe, as well as embarrassing the party by verbally attacking a BBC reporter .” – all of which undermined SA as a nation. But the only charge that mattered, and the only one to stick, was comparing Zuma to Mbeki, probably the only act that was both truthful and courageous. In other words, PRINCIPLE/ INTEGRITY and the NATION mean nothing. But PERSONAL LOYALTY and the PARTY mean everything, and is the only thing we really give a toss about. It is a sad indictment of the core values of the ruling party. As WB Yeats said “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world …the best lack all conviction, and the worst are filled with passionate intensity”. I recall that a pipe-smoking intellectual gentleman, ex-president, and a great lover of WB Yeats, predicted this would happen to SA.
The most accurate commentary on the Malema affair that I have read. It is not only sad that Malema got off so lightly—it is sad that, by and large, the media and so-called expert commentators have not unmasked the matter as you have done above.
@Mark Robinson: I used to believe, like you, that there are many men and women of integrity within the ANC. I have concluded that you loose your claim to integrity if you tolerate the total lack of integrity within the ANC leadership. I fail to see how you can have integrity if you not only tolerate Mbeki’s outrageous Zim/HIV behaviour, but then countenance his replacement with a scoundrel like Zuma.
The comparison of Pres Zuma to Mbeki was really crossing the line!
Hopefully this gives you some insight into the widespread anger towards Mbeki (who btw was supported by the majority of whites!) in slowing down transformation post-liberation.
“ANCYL now wants to appeal the ANC disciplinary tribunal’s ruling, despite the fact that Malema had pleaded guilty”
Silencing these voices is a dangerous precedent. The ANCYL’s actions is proof that there are THOUSANDS of Malemas (“prodigal sons”) out there. We should heed this as a warning sign.
In a Late Pleistocene culture, gang loyalties and conspiracies take up 100% of the effort.
Priorities of the state then get what’s left.
I am at loss of words, your blog just smacks of lack of knowledge of the inner workings of the ANC. As fr the charges brought foward, I think the media has this wishful thinking that the ANC should just listen to their ill-conceived advises. Maybe you should join the ANC and be the change you want to see happen.
I have yet to understand how someone like Mathews Phosa has truly lost who he is in this charade.
@Laura…re Matthews Phosa. Maybe it’s because his name is plural..maybe he has many personalities. LOL
But seriously folks. Some of us pink folks, have a hard time understanding ‘African Values’. The impression that I am getting is that the worst thing to do is to be disrespectful of the elders; but disrespectful is not defined; this is worse than lying, stealing and being loutish and brutal.
Hard to see where we can find common ground for communication.
I’m glad to know that others perceive things as I do.
Mashudu: it is not our perceptions of the ANC that really matter, but I would join no party so lacking in ethics and common decency. The majority of my country’s people root for those they expect to win rather than those who have their best interests at heart.
To explain: people like me take a lot of flak for being negative and critical, but we do absolutely nothing to subvert government’s work. On the other hand, too many who vote for the ANC and run the ANC are openly subversive, from the kiddy-corp leader to all those presently out on strike so close to the WC.
World perceptions are what really matter, clearly much more than you realise, because for us to continue be shown up as a bunch of crass idiots, with no compunction about how we behave, threatens investment, business and human rights; the core foundations of general global belief and thus economic growth. And on that depends every job in the country.
Keep an eye open. I’d guess that within a year, South Africa could be surpassed as Africa’s biggest economy and find itself no. 2 or 3. Our economic growth is way below some other African countries and general maintenance of public infrastructure has been so neglected, that we are well into catch-up phase…and stike marchers still set out to destroy what little is left…bravo!
Something new here? Plead guilty to interference with state affairs (Support of a genocidal regime to put it nicely, quite vocally, while SA govt. does so behind the scenes). Plead guilty to outright disrespect for the law (dropped because essentially such is the policy of the ruling party and its members, time and time again – perhaps dropped so as to see it in court, where the party has sway). Plead guilty to abuse of the press (party policy to ignore the press, except when placing blame for its own failures). The anger management part is the most interesting, it could be looked at lightly or a problem that will take years, years as a leader, for him to deal with. He only broke party rules, had power over the party (corruption?), and the party doesn’t need to follow the law or government rules. They even openly ignore them, party policy 101, save face, only takes 20 days of re-education camp for slight deviations. Doubt racism will be covered. A wide window for debate has been opened here, though government decisions are made behind closed doors and without direct representation or
responsibility. Perhaps it could be that Malema is rather only slightly less moronic than the ANC. Clearly though, this is simply about power, how quickly it corrupts, and how large numbers of people can be so easily manipulated.
In all the years in exile it would seem that the ANC psyche lost contact with the country and its peoples and as a result for those within the ANC the ANC itself became their country. The consequence of this is that on return to SA the ANC behaved like a parasite on the wider South African society as it did not see itself as part of the society. An indicator of the truth of this is shown by the high level of corrupt behaviour in government.
@Mashudu – You don’t have to be inside the building to see that it is on fire. Your comments have been copied and pasted from elsewhere and I still don’t believe them. Is the ANC some mystical cult that has complicated rituals that us mere mortals don’t understand? Are they so special that they do not operate like any other polital movement in the world?
The fact of the matter is that the ANC charged Malema because they don’t like his behaviour, but then they didn’t have the guts to go through with it because the party cannot act as one unit, but is split into factions of competing power interests. Charging him and then withdrawing all but zuma insult charge shows up the weakness of the power base of the encumbant leadership.
I can see all this by watching from a distance. Do you have an alternative explanation from your priveleged view of the action?
lol..i didnt know people were capable of such mediocrity.shame on you new crop of ANC
The fault-line is clearly defined in African culture with Dave Harris’s comment.
We do not have a king who can do no wrong, we have a president who is plain and ordinary servant of the people. The cultural throwback of kingly superiority and obeisance is still very prevalent and the scoundrel in power knows how to manipulate this very well.
Perhaps African politics can actually work if this wrong mentality were to morph to that suitable for a democratic political order.
Ubuntu means ‘togetherness or community’, “Us for all and all for us” but with the ANC in general and the youth league in particular it means “Us for all and all for us, provided you are an ANC member and provided you are black”.
Equal opportunity for all as enshrined in the constitution no longer applies as Ubuntu, Affirmative Action and BEE are applied. Malema is already rigging ANCYL elections as he has learned so well from his mentor, Mugabe. The ANC stands silent by but they applaud behind closed doors.
Democracy, Rainbow Nation and Ubuntu are dead. Expect election rigging to become rampant.
@La Quebecoise
“Some of us pink folks, have a hard time understanding ‘African Values’.”
Well, its never too late to learn. Open your mind and try learning from Africans especially the elders, who have a deeper knowledge of their culture. Unlike the Western mode of learning that you’re used to, sometimes these values cannot be easily picked up from books or the internet.
@ Mashudu
You are heading for a rude awakening.
There is no I in party comrades. If you want a dip at the trough, you tow the line… Ju Ju will be president. His Children will be educated in Switzerland…
@ “This is beyond comedy — it is in the sad realm of pathological emotional impairment.”
“Pathological emotional impairment” says it all. With the exception of Hogan, Manuel, and a few others, the leadership of both the ANC and the YL are pathologically emotionally impaired. Egomania seems to be a criterion for advancement in both groups and Megalomania gets you top job.
The inability to deal with issues calmly and impersonally means that there are no ‘measured responses’; everything is an ‘attack’ to be answered by ‘war’. This extreme irrationality cuts off debate, indeed prevents it altogether. When you have leaders like Motshekga and Mbete saying ‘democracy is a luxury only western countries can afford’ and that ‘SA needs only ONE political party’, you can see that ANC ‘political education’ completely excludes the study of Constitutional Democracy.
The ANC and YL seem to think that the ‘theory of one’ is all there is. The monolithic party is the monolithic state, the dictatorship of the dimmest.
The ANC’s farcical chastisement of Julius Seizure makes clear that the party pays no more than lip service to SA’s Constitutional Democracy. The next two years will be a political–and possibly physical–bloodbath from which will emerge not a President but a Dictator who will, of course, hide behind the ‘collective’ as his excuse for abusing power and ditching the Constitution. Mbalula, Malema, Shivambu, and their ilk are in the ascendency with the blessing of the ANC leadership.
South Africa, R.I.P.
WSM – whatever gave you the idea of separation of party and state ? Not in Africa
Sorry Dave, even ‘old folks’ are inappropriate sometimes. For us pinkies, the rudeness of Malema to a journalist, the alliance with ZANU PF in Zim, the ostentatious lifestyle, is a far more grievous sin, that his ‘rudeness’ to President Zuma.
Maybe this is one of those situations ‘never the twain shall meet’.
Oh for leaders who place the interests of the nation above narrow self interest and greed.@ Laura; I agree with you about Mathews Phosa…what is he playing at? Future president ?
@ Mashudu quoting “of lack of knowledge of the inner workings of the ANC”.
Anybody who is not half blind can see that there is a huge scramble within the ANC to plunder as much from the public coffers as possible and service delvery or the thoughts of actually doing a job in return is far from their minds.
The bankrupt ANC led Umsunduzi (Pietermaritzburg) council is a clear example of this. They have literally stolen ratepayers money and bankrupted the city. Now the new administration is asking people who have already had their accounts debited for refuse removal to “show community spirit” by pitching in and cleaning up the city themselves as they can no longer afford to do it. Welcome to the Banana Republic ANC style.
Mashudu’s ANC style “transformation” in the W Cape waterworks has led to very experienced engineers being dismissed and replaced by people who dont know what they are doing and as this ineptitude lead to a Carte Blanche expose, we can rest assured that this is only the tip of the ANC’s “inner workings” – we’d actually be horrified Mashudu if we could have more than this glimpse.
The representation of Malema’s activities is tendentious, to say the least. The High Court ruling, banning a struggle song, was something which everybody ought to oppose. Criticising judges is something which Thoughtleader does all the time (usually, admittedly, when the judges are black). As for Malema’s declaration of support for ZANU-PF, I’ll believe that’s a problem with mediation efforts when people also denounce declarations of support for the MDC.
None of these are national-interest questions; they all relate to public relations. The ANC is a political organisation and, like all political organisations, puts its political interests first.
The reason why Malema was cleared of the first three charges was that they were absurd charges which should never have been brought in the first place. (Except, maybe, shouting at the BBC journalist. Malema was probably right in what he said, but he shouldn’t have got so emotional about it. Anger management classes are a good idea there.)
The notion that Malema should not be allowed to gently criticise President Zuma — that’s actually the scary one. That shows how politically intolerant the ANC has become since Zuma took over.
The creator – (of what?)
Zanu PF comments by Malema were a direct affront to SA’s foreign policy and role in Zimbabwe. We are supposed to maintain a bipartisan outlook. This not just nc-pr” issue s resonated in other countries where SA is expected be neutral.
Another brilliant article.
@Mashudu – I love the assertions, that the inner workings of the ANC are so above the mere mortal, that understanding it is beyond anyone’s grasp. The fruit of the tree shows what tree it is. The fruit of the ANC is corruption, cronyism and nepotism – so do we really need to try to understand any more?
@ The Creator
Please identify the universe that you hail from, so that I can be sure to pass on by…
@Paul, the ANC is not some cult, but I am suprised at the way the blogger wrote as if what he is saying is fact, whereas its just speculative work.
secondly Malema was charged by someone who is fighting to retain his position in the ANC, not because the ANC felt he was wrong, thats why the charges were so hurried and not done according to the ANC constitution.
@ J, Elaborate.
@ MLH, out of the current crop of opposition who do you think has the best interest of ppl at heart? Is it Shikota or Zille? Your ignorance and prejudices are exposed by your ANC-bashing.
World perceptions, hmmm thats a good one. And among other things you talk about human rights as part of the equation for economic growth. hat about human rigths? Is having a frank dialouge about economic equality and transformation so bad for business?
@William Saunderson-Meyer
Do you not find it both rather scary and bitterly ironic how the current ANC administration (who have “only been in power for 1 year, not 16, give them a break,” LOL)have taken on many of the traits of the previous national Party apartheid regime?
Perhaps they are hoth national or Nationalist Socialist Parties?
The Nats also used to confuse party with state, and would haul out the old chestnut that commissions of enquiry into their alleged misdeeds were “not in the national interest”.
What they actually meant was that such enquiries were not in the national PARTY’s interest.
The Nats regularly put party interests before the National interest, and were unbelievably sensitive to criticism.
The Malema disciplinary hearing was indeed an internal ANC affair, carried out in terms of the ANC’s disciplinary gudielines – it was NOT a criminal matter in a court of law, hence the main charges were withdrawn in terms of a plea bargain – nothing wrong with that – it is the ANC’s prerogative – their party disciplinary rules, their prerogative to handle the matter as they see fit.
Regarding Zimbabwe, all that Juju has done is to overtly enunciate the ANC’s government’s COVERT position on the matter and support for Zanu PF.
I actually admire his honesty and forthrighness in that regard – at least he is being truthful on this matter, instead of presenting the ANC as an independant “honest broker” in the matter, which it clearly is not.
@SA you forgot Malema’s chair throwing outburst at his political opposition a few days after the BBC incident. And Zuma’s stint in court over rape, his belief that a cold shower will cure HIV/AIDS, and countless misdemeaners over acquired finances. YouTube Mandela and he gives a nice rendition of “the Boer” song. But the issue here is not what the educated think, its who gets voted in by the majority and who represents a strong enough leader to make a stand for presidency and sway the masses to vote otherwise. Forget Sandton and look at how places like Hillbrow have degenerated.