Selective rabble-rousing of Red Berets
The EFF is a selfstyled radical left force that burst onto the scene in 2013, ostensibly to light a fire under a complacent ANC on various frontiers concerning economic redistribution.
That is the long and short of the Red Berets’ history, although some cheeky analysts might say Julius Malema had to find a political home after being expelled from the ANC — and what better way to get back at his nemeses than by tackling them head-on?
Since its impressive debut showing in the 2014 general election, the party has gone from strength to strength, breathing fresh air into a political landscape that had grown weary of the ANC and the DA’s political duality, which often lacked dynamism; some even joked that the DA was the ANC dipped in vanilla.
Malema’s party has demonstrated a healthy appetite for strategic collaboration across ideological lines, while also holding on to its identity as the country’s agitator-in-chief for the black majority’s economic emancipation.
It has positioned itself as an advocate of the hard conversations that need to be had about the structure of the economy and has been vocal about its willingness to throw in its lot with the ANC in Parliament to expropriate land without compensation.
The EFF spearheaded the Constitutional Court case that resulted in President Jacob Zuma making a spectacular concession on Nkandla and being forced to “pay back the money”. There is also little doubt that the party has enlivened Parliament — National Assembly proceedings have become a must-watch since the Red Berets arrived on the scene.
Malema and his MPs have been “shaking the tables”, as one would say in woke parlance, and by extension the EFF’s presence in provincial legislatures and local councils has infused a new energy into these once-dull spaces.
So far, so good: the EFF ticks the right boxes. But scratch beneath the surface and another picture begins to form, which necessitates a re-examination of whether the EFF is truly fighting in the corner of poor blacks or is merely an echo chamber of black middle-class anxieties, pandering to the privileged and the woke.
The party’s response to and handling of the Hoërskool Overvaal admission debacle is instructive about where its advocacy loyalties lie in terms of the black constituency.
Fighters made their way to the school last week, ready and willing to punt the cause of the 54 English-speaking black pupils the Afrikaans-medium Overvaal would not admit.
It goes without saying that the educational success of the black child in SA is akin to playing the lottery: draw a losing hand and you are condemned to a lifetime of destitution, while a winning ticket bears the promise of a look-in at better economic prospects.
Securing a good education for a black child in SA can also be likened to an extreme emotional sport, because the system is so rigged.
The gatekeepers constantly shift the goalposts to increase barriers to entry at “better schools”, which are predominantly previously allwhite schools in the suburbs.
Language policy is one of these barriers that mask the bigger issue — that there is a dire lack of quality schools in majority black areas.
Kudos to the EFF for lending its voice to the pupils who wanted to be admitted at Hoërskool Overvaal, but where was the party in the Klipspruit West Secondary School saga, or in the case of a security guard who abused children at an Orlando East primary school?
Where were the fighters in the aftermath of lawyer Tumi Mokoena — who has represented Malema in court — shooting and wounding four Zebediela Citrus farm workers?
The EFF’s conduct in these less visible cases warrants a relook at whose interests the party truly represents.