Reckless anger does not carry forward the revolution

FROMthe planning phase of Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters, one had to use sniffer dogs to find out what really defines this group besides what they narrowly regard as “economic freedom in our lifetime”, a call they expropriated from the ANC Youth League.

Behind the noise of the EFF is actually an unconscious zeal to position itself as a PAC-lite of the 21st century. This they have done by reviving the PAC slogan “Africa for Africans” – but this time this group gives it a nicer blend by saying “We want white people to show remorse and give back every piece of land to Africans”.

They further try to pull the wool over the eyes of the public by claiming that all they want is the implementation of the Freedom Charter because the current ANC, which they term ZANC, is scared of whites, or interchangeably “scared of imperialists”, despite the fact that the ANC continues to unapologetically pursue the logical conclusion of the National Democratic Revolution.

In the eyes of the EFF leaders and followers there is no apparent contradiction in demanding the implementation of the Freedom Charter despite the fact that it says “South Africa belongs to all those who live in it, black and white”. Indeed this is proof that the EFF is just a bunch of excited fellows who are using “economic freedom” to justify their opportunistic incitement of spontaneous, raw, antiwhite sentiments.

They do this knowing that anti-white feelings exist in our society, mainly because of frustration caused by the triple crisis of inequality, poverty and unemployment.

The EFF demagogues have no shame in using the name of former president Nelson Mandela to pursue their scheme. The EFF has indeed captured some of the pains of our people, but while they understand the systematic challenges which are frustrating our people, they then take U-turns from progressiveness and choose to worsen racial tensions, in the hopes that such noise will convince voters to vote for them.

The approach of the EFF is deeply irresponsible, and has misled hundreds of genuine-grass roots patriots into thinking that reckless venting of anger somehow carries the revolution forward.

One hopes that the people will see through the EFF, that its “economic freedom” noise is just a blend of populist demagogy, sometimes hidden, and sometimes openly empty ‘Africanist’ rhetoric. Baxolise Mali