Cape Town -
The politician who wants to nationalise just about everything took the podium at one of Cape Town’s bastions of the privileged English liberal establishment, a club popular for its tennis courts and tender green croquet lawns.
There was not even the tiniest cavalcade when EFF commander-in-chief Julius Malema, dressed in his now trademark red overalls and beret, got out of a mid-sized car, notable only for its Gauteng number plates.
But his short walk to the spiral stairs stopped everyone in their tracks.
Staff whipped out cellphones to snap a photo; the heads of several club members whipped around to catch a glimpse of what clearly was not an everyday sight.
None of it was lost on Malema, who addressed a largely white and well-heeled crowd gathered in The Grill Room at Kelvin Grove, where the Cape Town Press Club hosted the sold-out event on Thursday.
There’s old money in this room, he said. “So we need to tap into that - not for the EFF, but for democracy,” smiled Malema, adding that people should not just fund those they agreed with, but also others to support South Africa’s multi-party democracy.
“I don’t agree with you, but I agree with democracy.”
On the EFF demand for nationalisation of mines and banks, and the expropriation of land without compensation, he did not mince his words.
The old “colonial and apartheid property ownership” relations, which 20 years into democracy still left millions of black South Africans landless, in poverty and without assets, must change.
“You may not agree with me - and I don’t expect you to agree with me - but these things must be said…
“If there is no leadership, our people will lead themselves. We will have an unled revolution. And an unled revolution is anarchy.”
Instead it should be a case of sharing as South Africans: “Your safety as people with money is guaranteed by the empowerment of those without money.”
On land, Malema pointed out that while South Africans remained landless, foreigners seemed to be buying up land.
In his home province of Limpopo, Malema said, this was ostensibly for game farms, yet these were nothing but rich foreigners’ weekend playgrounds.
“(Microsoft founder) Bill Gates can buy the whole of Limpopo and say anyone with a surname starting with M is out. Then the Malemas are out,” he said to laughter from his audience.
There was a prepared speech on a tablet, but Malema didn’t look down too often. Instead the address was a mix of policy explanations, political and largely anti-ANC rhetoric, sprinkled with a good dose of humour and the personal.
Like the anecdote of how staff at Luthuli House scampered into their offices on hearing of the arrival of former president Thabo Mbeki, whom he described as “ the best of the best intellect” and “the most feared” man: “What if he asks you a difficult question? How were we going to answer him?”
On his R16 million tax troubles, Malema said it may give the ANC an opportunity to “howl” at him, but the debt was being paid off. If there could be a settlement for businessman Dave King - he was embroiled in a decade-long battle with the tax authorities, before an agreement was reached - why not for him? Even if that came at the price of having to sell his Polokwane home, where he had buried the umbilical cord of his son. And the criminal corruption charges he’s facing were just a political ploy.
Amid the audience’s head nodding, laughter and applause, it seemed Malema hit all the right notes.
“You’re not as bad a guy as we thought. To listen to you is refreshingly lucid,” said a grey-haired man from the audience, saying Malema had “a jolly good sense of humour”.
Saturday Argus