Seeing red

EFF thuggery is beyond the pale

There seems to be an air of desperation about the EFF lately. With Jacob Zuma — the gift that keeps on giving — about to leave the political scene, they’re now casting about for something to exploit, something to be perpetually angry about. Rage, after all, is their only currency. There’s no denying that racism remains a scourge in society. It has defined and disfigured this nation for ages, and its eradication remains a national imperative. It is what the struggle has always been about.

And so when H&M, the Swedish retail giant, produced an ad of a black boy wearing a sweatshirt with “coolest monkey in the jungle” on it, all hell broke loose. People were outraged, and rightly so. There are few black people who’ve never been called a monkey at some stage in their lives. As a derogatory term, it’s up there with the k-word. One wonders what the shopping giant must have been thinking to come up with such an offensive ad.

It’s understandable therefore that those who were offended by the ad would want to express their feelings by some form of demonstration. Protest is after all part and parcel of any democratic tradition.

But the EFF didn’t just turn up to protest or express their disgust. They marshalled their troops to march on H&M stores to cause as much destruction as possible. Nothing was left standing. It was mindless demolition, sheer thuggery. And the police, if they were around, don’t seem to have done much to stop it.

This was not political activism; it was hooliganism. Somebody sympathetic to their cause remarked that amid all the destruction and obvious confusion, nothing was stolen. That was supposed to be a compliment. They destroyed with discipline.

Afterwards, a satisfied Julius Malema thanked his troops for a job well done. I suppose wreaking havoc in shops and breaking lifeless mannequins is the commander-in-chief’s idea of waging a battle. The EFF have styled themselves as the party of the poor and downtrodden. Did they think about the poor and downtrodden who work in these stores and who’d had to clean up their mess and possibly lose their jobs after the EFF had presumably made their political statement?

What’s also worrying is that some people who should know better have expressed approval, even appreciation, for what the EFF have done. They’re deluded.

Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba said this week the EFF offensive would discourage foreign investment in the country. But let’s not even go there. This sort of behaviour is plain wrong. Period. It offends our morality. Society should totally reject such delinquency and rank opportunism.

A party that sits in our parliament, presumably with the aim of one day controlling the levers of power, should not be involved in such thuggish behaviour. Lawmakers — which the EFF are already — should not be lawbreakers.

At the beginning of the month, universities — already edgy and unsure following Zuma’s reckless promise of free tertiary education — appealed to prospective applicants not to come to universities themselves but to apply online. That was sound advice, because a few years ago a parent was trampled to death in a stampede at the University of Johannesburg.

But no, the EFF would have none of that. In complete disregard for the safety of those involved, they told students to ignore such advice and descend on universities. This week a stampede duly occurred at Unisa’s Sunnyside campus. Thankfully, nobody was seriously hurt. The EFF nevertheless were able to claim a victory of sorts. Universities had been intimidated to back down. The fact that people could be injured or even killed is to the EFF an irrelevance. They thrive on chaos and lawlessness. Order is the enemy.

One of their members was also this week involved in a scuffle with a parent at the Hoërskool Overvaal. They descend on such a racially charged situation not to seek a solution, but to exploit it.

The EFF are a Zuma phenomenon. The ANC Youth League under Malema had transmogrified into Zuma’s personal army in his dogged fight with Thabo Mbeki for the party leadership. The high-water mark was Polokwane in 2007 where Mbeki was finally defeated and humiliated. In those heady days, Malema let it be known that he would kill for Zuma. Msholozi returned the compliment, describing Malema as “a leader in the making”. It was that sort of romance. But it didn’t last. Malema became too big for his little boots and when he was expelled from the ANC, he took the youth league’s policies and paraphernalia with him. All Malema needed was a new name. The league has never been the same since, its leader a butt of jokes.

Zuma’s repeated acts of looting and misconduct have served Malema and his party very well. His rage at Zuma expressed how we felt. We conveniently turned a blind eye to his boorishness. Well, Zuma deserved it, we figured. We forgot that our MPs have an obligation to carry themselves with a certain level of deportment.

With Zuma due to leave — for Nkandla or jail?— the EFF will lose their bread and butter. Cyril Ramaphosa, his replacement, will not be a particularly easy prey. He’s not likely to be as stupid or as reckless as his predecessor.

The EFF leadership have earned high praise for their commitment to education. Here’s hoping they’ll approach problems with cool heads, and resist the temptation to take gasoline to our numerous tinderboxes in their haste to score easy — and meaningless — victories.