Julius Malema was very impressive last week in Parliament. ANC comrades were not. It’s worth reflecting on what happened, and why the ANC is clearly shaken and stirred.
It is too soon to have a firm overall view of the Economic Freedom Fighters’ performance in Parliament. Only after enough parliamentary activity has happened, can we assess whether they get the business of parliamentary oversight, and the crucial but arduous task of crafting the best possible laws for our country.
We had our first sighting when the EFF responded to President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation address. And they did well.
EFF leader Julius Malema delivered an excellent response. It critiqued the president’s analysis of the State of the Nation, such as the poor economic outcomes achieved under Zuma’s watch.
Malema was spot on. You cannot talk about radical socio-economic policies as your galvanising vision without conceding that until now it wasn’t a primary aim of your government.
Malema rattled Zuma so much, it was left to ANC veteran Yunus Carrim to comically give us the definition of “radical”.
It was a desperate definition to the effect of now drilling down and with renewed focus. In other words: doing your job as government is radical. Go figure.
The point is Malema was framing the discussion, and that’s debate impact.
The speech was also poignant. Any decent debate coach will tell you the best humour is humour that carries insight while getting laughter from an audience.
Humour without insight is called a Leon Schuster film. Humour with insight is called The Trevor Noah Show. Malema was more Trevor than Leon last week.
The best example is when he made fun of Zuma for asking us to clean up our country in the name of Nelson Malema.
To well-earned laughs, Malema pointed out that that request was the only part of Zuma’s speech where the old timer slowed down, looked up and repeated himself because the rest of the speech was too serious in subject matter, to depart from script!
And for good measure he added he had no intention of listening to Zuma because clean-up projects were gimmicks. He’d rather honour Madiba with a public service project that changed the structural injustices in our communities. Funny. And bang on target, analytically.
I’m recalling this detail, not just because Malema was memorable, but because the coverage of the speech, including the newspapers in which this column appears, reduced the speech to a spectacle. That is lazy political reporting.
Even a fake revolutionary, my media colleagues, is capable of a good day at the political office.
Which brings me to the media’s coverage of Malema’s walkout. The key reporting was simply that he had walked out.
But two points need to be made: First, Malema gave a compelling response to the chair, Thandi Modise.
Obviously no ANC leader literally killed mine workers. So asking Malema to retract the claim about the ANC government massacring people might seem reasonable.
But that’s too quick. Do we find it unreasonable to say the National Party government killed black kids in Soweto in 1976? No. We are all clear that Verwoerd’s pigs were responsible for enforcing laws that trampled our dignity. The distinction between an NP government and police officers employed by an NP government hold no water in terms of fair comment.
Malema made the point with great clarity. He pointed out that when police reduce crime the ANC wants credit as government. So why not also be credited with police who commit crime?
Which brings me to Thandi Modise. I credit her for remaining calm, not talking a decision instantly but sleeping on it
. But Modise got the decision wrong. It’s not a reasonable limitation on free speech in Parliament to ask Malema to withdraw the statement.
Firstly, his defence as I just explained is fair. Secondly, and more importantly, there is greater space for provocative political dialogue in Parliament than outside it. In terms of parliamentary privilege he was within the legal bounds of what can be said in the rough and tumble of parliamentary debate. Her citing limitation clauses masked a deep misunderstanding of the social space afforded MPs to say the kind of thing Malema said.
So the walkout wasn’t diva behaviour.
In my estimation it is a case of Julius Malema 1, Thandi Modise 0.