SA youth must not fall for tinpot wannabe dictators such as Malema

THE political forces bubbling around in South Africa are all aware of the plight of our youth. It is the same plight facing most South Africans, unemployment and inadequate development of talents, capabilities and skills.

Around this time of the year, political formations try to outdo each other in their effort to appeal to the youth. But tragically at the core of this political effort, is only the pursuit of votes, seemingly at whatever expense. As a result, the idea of doing things to actually change society for the better is viewed as naive, unattainable and rather stupid.

However, no society has ever managed to improve itself without a clear belief that this is possible, and doing everything in its power to achieve this.

The thing is, pretending to care about meaningful change could never in a millions years equate to actually caring enough to act on it consistently.

As long as the eye of political formations remains firmly fixated on gaining votes, changing society for the better will remain a distant dream relegated to dreamers and academics.

Those who claim to know politics, will march on defiantly proclaiming things they have no intention of doing simply to gain votes.

This has been the modus operandi of the ANC almost from the day we proclaimed freedom in 1994.

But I suspect, it may be the modus operandi of virtually all our political formations.

I may have harboured some hope that the EFF may in fact be a formation of believers, who actually want to see our society changed for the better. That hope has since dissipated.

The EFF has been exposing itself more as an organisation hell-bent on using every division in the country to gain support with special emphasis on the youth. By pointing out the obvious, it hopes to impress the youth, as a formation which speaks the truth with bravery.

Yet being divisive in a nation which is battling with divisions which stem from an ugly past, is hardly brave and hardly offers any beneficial leadership.

The pseudo-militancy of the EFF which accompanies this, is also seemingly designed to impress the youth and tap into the natural energy of youth to lift the EFF to power. It is a political tactic as old as politics itself. But the horror of it is the resultant damage to society.

Change is desirable, but not any kind of change. The last thing we need is to take a step back into our horrible past just to see some change. What we want is progress. We want this society to change so that it never makes the same mistakes again. That’s change!

Listening to Malema recently in an eNCA interview with Cathy Mohlahlana, I could hardly believe the recklessness of the man, considering the tension in the country caused by years of mismanagement under the ANC and Jacob Zuma.

Ironically, Malema himself is responsible for gifting us the Zuma presidency through the same recklessness in thought and deed he displays now. His dishonest apology after the fact, cannot erase this.

Malema makes it a point that he walks in the footsteps of Hendrik Verwoerd, who engineered the separation of our people through skin colour, by addressing everything deliberately through this horrible lens.

“White people in South Africa are the safest people. There are no people in South Africa that are more safe than white people. They are untouchable,” said Malema.

Not only is this statement blatantly untrue, but it seeks to portray a section of our population as feeling nothing of the pain felt by others.

The truth of the matter is that crime is a huge problem for every South African. And you can only solve the problem of crime by solving it for everybody. The man is talking nonsense!

Now what leader goes on national television and proclaims a coming civil war? This guy takes us for fools.

But we will not sit back and keep quiet while Malema stokes war in this beautiful land of our forefathers.

This is unacceptable and every South African must rise up and tell this tinpot wannabe dictator that we will not satisfy his blood thirst. Enough blood is being spilt on the streets of this country every day. Our youth will not follow him into hell!