ANC's duty to rein in this bully

The ruling party has put its proud record on the line by not calling Malema to order

If I used the rude word now hovering on the tip of my tongue to emphasise that South Africa's ruling party has no courage, I'd be succumbing to vulgarity in these inelegant times. So let's politely consider the ANC's international humiliation in tolerating for far too long a form of foolishness that has apparently grabbed our politicians by the short and curlies – namely Julius Malema.

Although Jacob Zuma recently chided the obnoxious Juju for causing dissent in ANC ranks and for threatening journalists - which rebuke Malema characteristically challenged - it is our president's own namby-pamby lack of authority that has enabled the youth leader to gain a media profile he will not readily relinquish. (Malema's addiction to publicity and his bad-boy image were hardly in doubt prior to his recent support for the reviled Sowetan murder-accused known as Jub Jub, but that controversial prison visit has certainly proved it.)

There are those who believe the media should have ignored Malema all along, but it was never journalism's job to self-censor. Actually, the problem lies squarely with the ANC, a former fighting machine whose members used to risk life and limb for liberation but whose leadership has lately been too lily-livered to say boo to a loud-mouthed bully.

Zuma has claimed that his indulgence of Malema is based on freedom of expression, a good argument on the face of it (and indeed the Johannesburg Equality Court almost certainly erred a few weeks back in slapping a fine on Juju for views, however vulgar, that he is entitled to hold). In truth, though, the presidency is so compromised by its supremo's narrowly averted criminal conviction and the ANC's shaky political alliance that it is too scared of offending one or other faction to lead confidently. Among various consequences of this paralysis is a misuse of the nation's courts in trying to settle disputes - like accusations of hate speech against Malema - that ought to be resolved politically.

Malema will sing Dubul' Ibhunu (Shoot the Boer) all the louder in such a power vacuum. Despite his recklessness being a clear threat to the rational debate we ought to be promoting among young people, nobody at the top is going to insist that Juju winds his neck down if he ignores Zuma's recent reprimand, as seems inevitable.

Even after our president was obliged to spend a ludicrous amount of time during a recent state visit to Britain refuting the damaging nationalization ravings of this silly person, South Africa's leader has still not directly distanced the presidency from the source of our worldwide embarrassment - an ill-educated 29-year-old whose exposure as someone with a likely dubious interest in devalued mining shares is cringe-worthy.

You have to wonder what has become of the ANC's once-lauded commitment to decency during the Malema debacle. Juju's cruder insults include labeling opposition leader Helen Zille a whore who, he said, had slept with the DA's entire cabinet. He once announced to a student gathering in reference to the ID's leader de Lille: "Patricia does not look like a married woman, but if she is married that man must divorce Patricia and come and get a beautiful woman in the ANC." 

While at one level Malema's delinquent prattle is spewed forth for cheap laughs, his irresponsible utterances are often so publicly disrespectful as to say a lot about those in charge who allow his boorishness to go unchallenged beneath the ANC banner.

Although some commentators have compared Malema to Nelson Mandela in his early days as ANCYL leader, Juju is in fact the new Winnie - a law unto himself and not afraid of anything. I often find myself thinking of the difference between Nelson and Winnie Mandela, two hearts that used to beat as one, in order to figure out the contradictions of South Africa's democracy.

Nelson genuinely cared about a peaceful outcome to our tragic history, and never swerved from that path. He kept his bodyguards under control, stood down earlier than the continent's other premiers, and treated everybody including his former enemies courteously. Winnie, by contrast, fought for social justice but abused children, defrauded creditors and bullied her way through life. You have only to be in her presence to feel that, despite being a woman, she is the quintessential Big Man of Africa.

Ditto the crude and eccentric Malema: although more child than man, he is an equally scary example of Africa's peculiar populist politics. Immune to constructive criticism and engaged in an orgy of self-enrichment, secure in his intimate cabal amid hordes of cronies, he seems to believe - like Mugabe, Gaddafi and El-Bashir - that he belongs in the realm of the gods.
Zuma has ill-advisedly assured South Africans that Malema is a future leader of the ANC, and heaven help us if this is true. But Juju still has some distance to travel on his journey to Big Man sainthood.

When his ANCYL leadership is put to the vote, young citizens may yet have the good sense to reject his corrupt ways and appalling manners. Those I spoke to in Soweto about Malema a few months ago certainly didn't admire his vulgarity. You wonder if he could be in for a shock awakening one of these days when the better instincts of ordinary people unexpectedly rise up against him. After all, his once-popular pal Jub Jub would not in his wildest, cocaine-fuelled dreams have expected Sowetan kids to react the way they did to his recklessness and narcissistic disregard for their grief.   

All of which jaw-jaw about Juju and Jub Jub brings me back to the missing bits of the ANC's anatomy. Frankly, if the organization continues to lack the courage to emphasise orderly values over thuggishness, the ruling party is risking not only its proud reputation but the authority it needs to govern the country effectively – and perhaps even the dreaded African Big Man syndrome.