The EFF’s Floyd Shivambu, left, reacts as Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema briefs the media, 13 October 2016. Picture: Neil McCartney
A little dig at Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane was sent late on Sunday by EFF leader Julius Malema.
He was responding to a brutal Hogarth article in the Sunday Times that criticised Maimane for allegedly not having his own identity. The anonymous Hogarth claimed Maimane had lived his “entire political life trying to be someone other than himself”.
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Hogarth was unimpressed at Maimane’s apparent audacity in “blowing his own horn” on Freedom Day by comparing himself to global icon Nelson Mandela, which Hogarth mocked as him trying to be “Mini-Madiba”, after he was initially called “Mini-Obama” when he came on the political scene.
Malema didn’t get too directly involved in the ensuing response from Twitter, despite many pointing out that, in their opinion, Maimane was starting to look and sound a lot like Malema in his speeches.
However, the EFF leader did take the opportunity to tag Maimane into a response to a Richard Branson tweet about his top 10 favourite “on discovering original”.
Ironically, one of the quotes that Branson selects and attributes incorrectly to Nelson Mandela was actually originally said by Marianne Williamson and paraphrased by Mandela: “There is no passion to be found in playing small – in settling for a life that is less than you are capable of living.”
However, it’s the John Mason quote that Malema was tagging Maimane into: “You were born an original. Don’t die a copy.”
Many noticed the jibe and reacted. Maimane, however, did not respond.