Alex Tabisher writes that he salutes the feral and primordial cunning of a certain Mr Julius Malema, who almost single-handedly pulled off the media coup of the century. He commandeered what was already a public holiday, to wit, March 20. Picture: Timothy Bernard African News Agency (ANA)
Words such as skittish, nervous, tense, uncertain, afraid, and apprehensive describe the deep extant psychic laceration that is close to becoming a part of the national ethical discourse.
We can add dismay, confusion and disbelief to describe the impossible truth that none of the promises of the first free election of 1994 were met, or, at best, were attempted, then crashed because of ineptitude (a nice word for stupidity). Then we add words that articulate the questions which all ultimately ask, Quo Vadis: Where to now?
We followed our own E routes of emigration, education, employment and entrepreneurship when it became clear the ANC’s BEEE (how many Es?) became a formula for reverse racism.
Our pass rate in all areas is low because we had no road map. All we had were the ill-expressed injunctions and fumblings, including the inability of those who rule, to display any semblance of literacy or numeracy other than the reprehensible threats or worse: the empty often-repeated promises followed by arrogant silences.
Because language and literacy are the only imperatives that drive my column, I shall close off this section by referring to the power of the spoken word. Here I pause to salute the feral and primordial cunning of a certain Mr Julius Malema, who almost single-handedly pulled off the media coup of the century. He commandeered what was already a public holiday, to wit, March 20.
As insidiously as the snake deceived Eve in that original pristine garden, he convinced the country the mother of protests would happen on that day.
Witness the panic that was galvanised by a well-timed clever utterance, unfunded, unattainable and as outlandish as teaching pigs to fly, yet he sold the idea a second KZN riot was about to occur.
It wasn’t true. It had no substance. But he played our natural exhaustion with masterful aplomb. He galvanised the ANC, businesses, the army, police, security factions, churches, schools – you name the arenas that he stampeded. He turned logic, self-belief and incredulity on its head.
Clips were fast and furious. Some people threatened him with resistance if he set foot in the Western Cape. He was warned about weapons of mass destruction, like an angry coloured woman brandishing a stiletto heel. Some Afrikaners with heart promised him a fight equivalent to the great battles that incarnadine our history. Whites showed us assurances by calling us “masekind”.
Malema did no more than make empty but well-chosen and well-placed intimations, and we added the rest. This is not 20/20 vision.
At my first encounter with this upstart, my words were: He is not to be swept under the mat. He speaks the language of the downtrodden. At the same time, he alienated whites who might have found virtue in his overnight-achieved political savvy. Most importantly, he alienated the government, which promptly kicked him out.
That he is an elected member of a legitimately elected government is not in question. That he demands respect as such is not consequent. Whether he deserves respect is another story.
Let me end off by trying to point out how cleverly this man’s words were disseminated, the cunning timing, the exact placing of the emphases, the idiom of disaster, the fuelling of our own self-immolating loss of direction, and our need to believe in something, even if it was a blind panic that united us momently.
Malema can write off his career as a politician. No one in his or her right mind would credit him with the muscularity of Garibaldi’s Red Shirts, or the semi-military compulsory dress code of the Third Reich. A red boiler suit? Give me a break. That identity code is nothing but a sick joke.
So, dear reader, you have had a classic lesson in the power of the word: spoken or written. Arm yourself against future panic and continued mediocrity or dehumanisation. Learn to read, and read to learn.
You will soon be able to deal with this lot who think they will be able to fool us forever.
* Alex Tabisher.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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