South Africa is in very, very grave danger

Recently many of us have been suffering a measure of cognitive dissonance. 

This has been induced by the spectre of seeing and hearing none other than Julius Malema presenting as a sentient counterpoint to the arrogant ignorance and ignorant arrogance now routinely paraded by the likes of Gwede Mantashe in ANC leadership. 

Compared to Gwede and Jesse Duarte for instance, Julius has come across as a rock of sense and a fountain of wisdom and common sense spewed out in the public interest. 

It is difficult for any reasonable person to reconcile this "new" Julius Malema to past reality, that includes him securing leadership in an elective conference that would have shamed a bad shebeen as it included delegates proudly exposing their anal anatomies. 

We are also aware, as Justice Malala correctly observes that he was born and bred into the ANC, nurtured by the ANC, fattened up by the ANC and then unleashed on the public.   Once unleashed he frothed at the mouth like something rabid, announcing that he "would kill for Zuma". He is credited with having been central to the ignominious downfall of the once revered "I am an African" Thabo Mbeki.  Jacob Zuma reciprocated by publicly endorsing Malema as an ideal future President of this fledgling democracy.  

However once he and Zuma fell out of love with each other he has flown a revolutionary flag, preaching racist divisiveness and committing to tearing up the Constitution and implementing policies that would violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that the whole World was constrained to adopt after two (2) bloody World Wars and the Holocaust. 

Now Julius is presenting as a sentient hero. No reasonable person could disagree with one syllable, word or sentence that he voiced in Parliament when demanding that President Zuma comply with the Report of the Public Protector.  So too as regards his rejection of the Speaker's suspension of members of his EFF Party. He is coming across as a true champion of the public interest.

Herein lies a very grave danger. It is a truism that "a leopard never changes its spots". The very reason why there is this clichéd saying is because long history has proved it to be so true. 

What needs to be understood is that it is all too easy to attack, fault and embarrass the ANC. ANC leadership has simply failed the people over the last 16 years, firstly under Thabo Mbeki and now under Jacob Zuma. At the heart of this failure has been a racist reform model that ANC leadership was only too glad to accept from the same big business sector that underpinned the corrupt apartheid system. In the result ANC leadership has always been obsessed with a highly materialistic approach to socio-economic reform, as opposed to an understanding and implementation of true social justice. The result has been the creation of a new African elite in an incestuous relationship with traditional big business, leaving the majority still stuck in apartheid poverty. 

So it is really so very, very easy to attack, fault and embarrass the ANC.  Julius Malema was very much part of this preoccupation with dealing in assets, power and influence, as opposed to advancing the public interest. As President of the ANC Youth League he was one of the architects of the drivers of the failure of social justice. 

It is to be extremely naive and foolish to believe that the"leopard has changed its spots". The reality is that the man is simply employing artfulness and cunning that notoriously present in those that are greedy for politic power. The likes of Julius Malema, Idi Amin, Adolph Hitler ... etc ... know that all you need to do to gain power is to promise the masses what they want to hear, and they will support you ... because they have nothing to lose by doing so.  

It is that simple. It works. This simple populist strategy works ... because people really do have nothing to lose by following you. What you are giving people is Hope, in a situation of hopelessness.  Hope is the most powerful instinct human beings have.  Since current ANC leadership has made such a terrible mess of things it is defenseless. Julius Malema and the EFF are onto a very good thing ... in their strategy to expose the rottenness of the ANC government.
It is harsh irony that the EFF actually has a duty to beat the ANC with the stick of its failures on every aspect of such failures. In particular the EFF is duty bound to hold a brief for the poor ...  something the hypocritical so called SA Communist Part has simply failed to do.
The ANC is check mated as it cannot turn around and say to Julius "a'ah but you were part of the team tat created these problems" as that would be an admission of failure.
So what is this danger that I seek to warn off?  It is this.  

As the ANC wilts under attack and starts losing ground to the new "Messaih" the point will be reached where, for purely survivalist motives, current ANC leadership will have No Option but to sit down with the EFF and broker a deal.It should be remembered that this Constitution has been a thorn in the side of current ANC leadership for a very long time.  

Feel free to see this in the same vein as the deal brokering that the Mafia routinely indulged in their Al Capone hey days.

At that point our own brand of gangsters will agree to amend the Constitution so that the EFF's lunatic agenda to grab private property can be effected. Between the ANC and the EFF they have to two-thirds majority needed to tear up the Constitution.

That will be the beginning of the end for South Africa as it sinks into becoming a pariah State, like Zimbabwe, and falls out of the 21st century ...... 

Dear Jesse Duarte

With the greatest respect your statements on the saga involving the Public Protector are actually embarrassing, considering the leadership role you play in this country.

For instance you are insisting, with great passion. that the Public Protector should not have taken a stance with the President on his failure(s) to comply with her directive "because the matter is with Parliament ... and she is not above Parliament." 

This stance is only explicable on the basis of a fundamental misconception of how our democracy is constitutionally structured. 

In terms of that structure known as the "Doctrine of Separation of Powers" the Office of the Public Protector is in no way circumscribed by what Parliament is doing. 

She has a functional duty to ensure that her Report is complied with ... and that is what she is attempting. 

The debate in Parliament about her Report may well be very interesting ... but is actually IRRELEVANT .. for the very good reason that Parliament has no power to reverse, change or second guess  her Report. The reports by the Minister of Police and the Special Investigations Unit are entirely irrelevant in the scheme of things. 

Only the Superior Courts have power to interfere with her Report. !!!! 

Only the Superior Courts have power to interfere with her Report. !!!!

Parliament actually has a duty to ensure that her Report is complied with.

Ditto ... the so called "leak" of her letter to the President. This is simply a red herring for the simple but good reason that there actually should be NO secrecy about whether or not her Report is being complied with.

Both she and the President are fully accountable to the public who are their employers.
A citizen would be entitled to ask her what she is doing about having her Report complied with. In that event she would be obliged to say that she had written to the President. So this so called "leak" is really a "nothing" issue.

 Justice Malala is quite correct in his particularized observation that Parliament has long since ceased to "do its work" as prescribed by the Constitution. Parliament is constrained to hold the Executive accountable to the general public. From the time of the unlawful disbanding of the Scorpions, against majority public opinion, Parliament has simply acted as a "rubber stamp" of whatever the NEC of the ANC wants.

The harsh reality is that Parliament is now actually a superfluous "blah blah shop". You might as well not have it, because whatever the NEC decides is endorsed by Parliament as a matter of course. When two (2) ANC members of Parliament actually acted in accordance with the Constitution and voted against the unlawful secrecy Bill they were disciplined by the ANC.

So sadly Malala is right in his observation that the ANC cannot complain that the EFF members "disrupted" the workings of Parliament, as there is no "working" actually occurring. By asking the question as to when the President was going to comply with the Report of the Public Protector Julius Malema, whatever we might think of him, was actually attempting to get Parliament to do its "work".

There is actually not one word, syllable or sentence that Malema uttered that was not 100% correct.

 Might I suggest that you ask Prof Pierre De Vos or Prof Shadreck Gutto or even me, to run a workshop for ANC leadership on our Constitution ... as misconceptions about it are actually breathtakingly embarrassing.

This puts our fledgling democracy in very real danger.