Malema: Rebel with or without a cause?

Julius Malema is the subject of a book written by freelance journalist Fiona Forde. It is a political portrait of the ANC Youth League leader from the author's personal perspective. Photo: Bongiwe Mchunu

Julius Malema is the subject of a book written by freelance journalist Fiona Forde. It is a political portrait of the ANC Youth League leader from the author's personal perspective. Photo: Bongiwe Mchunu

Published Aug 23, 2011

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Malema has no idea how many more are busy plotting against him while he’s here in South America. And this is also virgin territory for him. He has been getting away with blue murder for so long but it looks as if it could all come crashing down at any time now. So I opt to keep the conversation light.

“Where’s the Breitling?” I ask, when I notice that the wristwatch he’s wearing is not the expensive, flashy-looking one that is usually featured in photos of him in the press.

“It’s broken,” he tells me, again waving his hand in that characteristic dismissive gesture of his, his face still set in a firm frown.

I ask what happened to it and he blithely launches into the sorry tale.

The watch, which was from the exclusive Breitling for Bentley range, met its demise late in 2009, roughly around the same time as the Malema brand began to fray. It happened one afternoon when he was spending some time with his son Ratanang, his only child, at his home in Polokwane.

Ratanang was a big fan of Ben 10, the American animation series about young Ben Tennyson and his watch-like device with its supernatural powers, which allow the young boy to transform into alien characters. And to three-year-old Ratanang, Dad’s flashy Breitling looked just like Ben’s extraordinary watch.

“Can I play with it?” he asked.

“You can,” his father answered as he unstrapped the wristwatch and handed it to the child.

Ratanang began to fiddle with the dials of the watch, just like Ben does. He imagined himself programming it with the DNA of the alien he was about to transform into, just as Ben would have done.

Then, as he had seen Ben do a thousand times, he swiftly raised his little arm upwards, as if he were getting ready for take-off into some other world. And that’s when the big Breitling slid off his small wrist and soared into the air before falling flat on the floor seconds later.

With the thud, the Breitling signature gold wings became detached from the top of the face of the watch and were left swivelling at the bottom beneath the glass.

The child could still hear the tick-tock of the watch and he could see that the second hand was still in motion, but the gold wings were out of place. And one look at his father told him he had done something terribly wrong.

He continued to look at him, but he had no words to match his father’s stare. So the pair just looked at one another in silence.

The watch was not beyond repair, but in one small innocent act the young boy had damaged one of his father’s most distinguished symbols of status and wealth. And that was the end of the Breitling Bentley. I can picture it all so vividly.

I can see that look of rage on Malema’s face. I can imagine the child wilting in front of his father. And I can’t speak for laughter as the story comes to an end.

“It’s OK,” Malema says, in an attempt to dismiss my laughter suggesting it was no big deal. It was nothing that money couldn’t put right anyway, which he duly did in the weeks that followed, adding to his impressive watch collection, which by now is worth a fair penny.

“I bought another one,” he says as he unstraps the watch he is wearing and hands it to me.

It’s a very nice watch and I tell him so. But it’s not a Breitling and I wonder why he didn’t replace it with one from the same brand.

“No, I did. This is just another one,” he says. “I have many watches. Many, many watches, to match my shoes.”

“Why to match your shoes?” I want to know.

“Fiona,” he goads, looking at me with an expression that is heaped with scorn, pity and dismay, all rolled into one.

“The leather in your shoes is supposed to match the leather in your belt and your watch. So if you wear brown leather shoes,” he tells me, as he points to his soft, brown leather Yves Saint Laurent slip-ons, “you must wear a brown leather belt,” he says, tugging at the waist of his trousers, “and a brown leather watch,” tapping on his left wrist with his right forefinger in a confident gesture, happy now that he has the upper hand in the conversation.

The heavy mood of a few minutes ago is well and truly behind him.

And this is the young South African who preaches on behalf of the poor and to the poor, the man who promises to bring on the next stage of the so-called National Democratic Revolution (NDR) in South Africa; and here he is in Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela lecturing on the finer points of fashion. “Far from co-ordinated leather you were reared,” I remind him.

“That’s the way it is,” he replies.

“Who taught you all of this?” I want to know. And why would he care to abide by it all, he who shows scant respect for any kind of rule or reason at the best of times.

“You don’t know what you are talking about,” he responds. “Look at you.”

Venezuela has never seen so many designer labels as it has these past 48 hours since the arrival of the South African young ones. They descended on the city with their expensive suitcases and travel bags, top-of-the-range baseball caps, flashy T-shirts, snazzy shoes and sneakers, sleek manbags and a string of other expensive accessories hanging out of them – and a bodyguard in tow – all dressed up for a socialist youth conference.

I have been wondering how they must appear in the eyes of the other youth who have flown in from all over the world, and who are also staying at the Avila. The three-star hotel is swarming with casually-dressed, young delegates and among them, to my mind at least, the South Africans seem to stand out a mile. They are misfits in this mix. They look as if they don’t belong. Some of them look more like mafia than young militant activists. But the look on Malema’s face suggests that it is I who has been conspicuous all this while, among the South Africans at least, and I appear to have let the side down badly.

I’m not wearing a belt or a watch, but the problem seems to be with my red patent, open sandals and black-and-brown leather bag.

“What’s wrong with me?” I ask.

By now curiosity has crept up on the receptionist as he fixes his look in our direction. I’m not sure that he speaks English well enough to understand fully what is being said, but he seems to be getting the gist of Malema’s body language.

“Your shoes are not the right colour for your bag,” Malema tells me, pointing to my feet. “They should be matching. They should be the same.”

“Who said?” I ask again.

Malema’s hometown friend, Patti Nkobe, tells me she suspects that his friend Fana Hlongwane, whose name has been linked to the multi-billion-rand arms deal scandal, advises Malema on his style (as she claims he does on everything else). But if he does, Malema is not letting on.

“That’s fashion, man,” he tells me. “I know.”

The conversation is only getting going when a young American man brings it to a halt.

“Are you Julius Malema?” he asks in a broad North American twang.

“No,” Malema answers with brazen mendacity, as he looks the other way.

“Are you sure you are not Julius Malema from the African National Congress in South Africa?” the man asks for a second time, before explaining that he is a locally based journalist who has been asked by one of South Africa’s Sunday newspapers to try to track Malema down in Venezuela to find out what he is up to.

“No, no. SeSotho. SeSotho,” Malema says, suggesting he can only speak in his mother tongue as he tries to confuse and discourage the journalist.

“Oh, you are from Lesotho. Oh, I’m sorry,” he says as he takes a few steps back, the look on his face suggesting he is not entirely convinced that this is not his subject. But he’s not about to challenge the sullen-looking character either.

“Yes,” Malema grunts.

The journalist turns on his heel and begins to walk slowly towards the front doors.

But within seconds, he turns around and marches towards Malema, his hand outstretched as he holds up the mirror image of the Youth League leader that he has cleverly sourced on his cellphone.

The young man sitting in front of him, decked out in designer regalia from head to toe, couldn’t be anyone but the South African youth whose tail he is supposed to be tracking. “Are you sure you are not Julius Malema?” he ventures again with a broad smile on his face as he holds up the phone for Malema to see.

Malema breaks into his mother tongue for a second time and he rants on for a minute or two, gesticulating with his hands and flicking his wrists as he always does when he gets hot under the collar. He then stands up and hails a taxi and stomps out of the hotel, leaving the journalist looking bewildered in his wake.

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