ANC Fiddles over Malema while South Africa Burns

By Michael Trapido

President Jacob Zuma is going to have to draw a line in the sand and decide where loyalty ends and common sense begins in his, as well as the African National Congress', approach to the ANCYL and its president Julius Malema.

First there was Dr Evil and Mini Me....
And now the new ....

After yesterday's racist tirade at the University of Johannesburg the ANC has yet to decide on whether or not to meet with its youth league president. Spokesman Ishmael Mnisi said on Wednesday that the party was always in touch with the league, but had not decided whether to talk to Malema about this particular matter.

In layman's terms the ruling party that forms the government that is in charge of all South Africans can't decide whether racist attacks on certain of their citizens needs to be dealt with by them.

Perhaps at the next election they may wish to clarify before the vote that if the ANC are elected as the next government then they see their role as strictly overseeing the needs and requirements of the ANC membership. This in turn will mean that the remaining 45 odd million South Africans are going to need a separate government to deal with their issues.

Pursuant to a declaration along those lines the ANC will be more than welcome to focus on purely party matters from what will then be fewer seats than those currently held by the ID.

In the meanwhile, as they are the government and ruling party in charge of all South Africans - while clearly in desperate need of a few tutorials on what distinguishes a constitutional democracy like South Africa from the anarchy that is Somalia - perhaps they might want to consider what the implications are going to be if everyone starts behaving like Malema and certain other leaders.

He is after all a role model to the masses.

If every interest group that goes to make up the aggregate of what we consider our masses starts calling for violence and resorts to name calling against the ANC or the government every time it feels so inclined what will be the response?

As things stand you can't even scratch your ear with your middle finger if the President's convoy is passing by in case you get picked up, have a brown bag put over your head and interrogated to see that you aren't endangering our leader.

Yet when the leader of one of the biggest groups in the country - the ANCYL - calls the leader of the opposition a Satanist and the head of the ID a woman that no normal man could marry the ANC can't work out whether to deal with it or not.

The hypocrisy is overwhelming.

When Malema called for white people to be shot and accused them of being rapists somewhere, somehow, someone surely asked the question of how much longer this is going to be allowed to carry on before it turns on those who don't deal with it.

For example if, once again, other groups followed the youth league president's fine lead and called upon their followers to shoot other races would the government expect the police to have to go in and arrest them and if so how would they be able to distinguish it from Malema's case without arresting him?

Or is Malema simply above the law?

As we saw earlier today the police are changing to military ranks to try and instill discipline.

That's nonsense.

You fight corruption and crime by setting examples at the top and clamping down on slackness at the bottom. The same way that you ensure that a culture of lawlessness does not arise by giving example after example of leaders and politicians who disregard the rule of law as if it is some kind of irritant.

A disregard which seems to permeate every level of our society.

What is going to happen when South African society, using our leaders as their example, start disregarding the laws that they consider inappropriate to themselves? Is the government going to try another do as I say not as I do number?

At that point in time the very system that maintains law and order will, as a result of their own conduct, become ineffective in dealing with the society that it is meant to regulate and the people who are responsible for undermining it by gross disregard, will be the ones calling out the military.

In a country where so much anger exists over the perceived failure of service delivery coupled to a culture of violence that arises from way back when the last thing that anyone would expect is that those in charge of the country do anything to jeopardize a criminal justice system which they may well need in the not too distant future.