“Zuma is not sick, he is a troubled man. We do not wish him well, we wish him long suffering. He must suffer until he takes responsibility for the killing of mine workers. The ANC never loved you. They killed our people and never take responsibility for that”.
These were the words uttered by Julius Malema when addressing his supporters and Freedom Park in North West. He went on to comment on Gwede Mantashe by saying “Gwede has long beard, does not bath and has no fashion sense and therefore he will teach him how to dress properly”.
It seems like Julius makes more sense when he is quiet than when he opens his mouth. Every time he says something, his comments are full of vulgarity, recklessness, disrespect, dishonesty and irrationality. It’s fine if Julius Malema hates the president (and we know why), but to wish the president more suffering as he was hospitalised is very childish and unacceptable.
Malema should understand that he is now a member of parliament, which means he is not only serving his EFF followers but a broader section of society.
What kind of a ‘revolutionary’ is he? Remember Che Guevara once reminded us that “true revolutionaries are guided by the greatest feeling of love”. By this he did not mean loving your peers and your comrades only, he meant loving every human being. It is for this reason that one is entitled to believe that Malema is not fit to hold public office.
Malema also suggested that the people of Marikana were killed by the ANC, this shows that he still need to learn more about the difference between the government, the state and the party. This is the reason why in its ideological hallucination, the ANC killed people of Marikana. He is forgetting that the ANC was among the few political parties to condemn the killings in Marikana.
Julius is a hypocrite of note, he failed to live up to the promises they made to their constituency by accepting parliamentary benefits, now he wants to teach Gwede how to dress properly. Does he suggest that Gwede must be a hypocrite like him and wear overalls during the day, only to change them to Gucci and rollex watches when drinking expensive whiskeys at night?
I feel very ashamed to live in the same era as Julius Malema, this is a curse to the people of South Africa, especially to those who voted EFF. The unfortunate part is that no one will reprimand him as he is the EFF himself; and his cohorts will soon defend his reckless and irresponsible comments day in and day out.
Malema does not need to be reminded that his grandmother is still alive, Jacob Zuma too is a grandfather. How will it feel for him to hear other leaders wishing his grandmother pain and lot of suffering by the time she gets sick? Are his cohorts going to agree with the public should such situation arise? But most importantly, what does the commander in chief seek to achieve by disrespecting us and the Zuma family?
Time is now for the ‘commander’ to understand that electioneering is over, it’s now time to work together to help government (which he is part off) to move South Africa forward. His lies to the public do not assist us in any way. Police are not run at Luthuli house, the ANC is not government but a ruling party in government and there is a huge difference between the two. Failure to understand this will lead to people making intellectually bankrupt comments like those one of the ‘commander in thief’.
While Julius may hallucinate about being a government in waiting, his party is slowly but surely bleeding to death because of him. This is a sign that he is not a good leader and his public statements are a proof to that. He needs to wake up from what ever dream he is having, but most importantly Julius should be informed that the president will be the one delivering the State of the Nation Address this evening (17/062014) because unlike him, Jacob Zuma is not the president in waiting and is not as sick as Julius would want him to be.
Tom Mhlanga is a BA student at Wits, writing in his personal capacity.
