JULIUS MALEMA’S ARMY IN BOTSWANA

From where he stands, Julius Malema, the “leader” of South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters, adjudges Botswana to be a threat to regional security because it hosts a United States “military airbase.” The airbase in question is Thebephatshwa, which is 24 kilometres north- west of Molepolole. The argument that Malema is making is that the US can use this airbase to launch attacks on neighbouring states - like South Africa.

This allegation is not new but there is something that can be stated with certainty: Malema himself is a threat to regional security because he is franchising out a toxic kind of politics that is being embraced by a disproportionately large number of misguided youth and some opposition leaders. A man accusing the US of having deployed weapons of war ( fighter jets) to Botswana is himself deploying Fear Fokol, a gang of foul- mouthed ignoramuses who are aping his style of politics.

Fear Fokol’s presence is most pronounced in the Botswana National Front and if there is any physical violence at the party’s upcoming national congress, Fear Fokol would certainly have everything to do with it.

A Fear Fokol- like gang has also taken shape in Namibia and some of its members are parliamentarians whose Malema- like antics periodically paralyse deliberations of the legislative body. Being an ignoramus himself, Malema fails to realise that he should be more worried about what the US is doing to his own country and not once have to worry about what it is allegedly doing in Botswana. The level of Americanisation in South Africa is so egregiously high that most urban youth are indigenous culture- shunning honorary Americans. Shouldn’t Malema be more worried about “Americans” deployed on South African soil than about a base whose real purpose remains murky even to Batswana?