Young, black and frustrated: professionals are eyeing red berets

FOR an event organised by Julius Malema’s radical Economic Freedom Fighters, there was something strikingly unusual about the gathering at the Protea Hotel in Midrand on Friday last week.

The crowd that congregated in the hotel’s conference room was more polished than the usual rowdy EFF types in their red berets and overalls.

They were lawyers, medical doctors, engineers, accountants, teachers and young entrepreneurs who had responded to an invitation to an EFF “professionals seminar”. Most were not members of the party — as became evident when the floor was opened for comments — but rather sympathisers frustrated at the slow pace of transformation in their working environments and largely disgruntled at the direction South Africa is taking.

The conference room, which seats 250, proved too small; a sizeable number of the audience had to stand while others could only follow the proceedings from outside the packed venue.

The speaker for the night was the EFF’s newest recruit, advocate Dali Mpofu. Having listened to Mpofu speaking before, one had doubts that the professionals would have left home just to hear him. The populist Malema was not there either.

Mpofu’s lack of magnetism soon became apparent. The real issues that had brought the crowd together emerged when the roving microphone moved from one pair of hands to another.

First to take the floor was a chemical engineer, who complained that his industry had yet to transform. A recently qualified lawyer followed with anecdotes about how some of his colleagues were reduced to being “messengers” instead of getting opportunities in the law firm where he was doing his articles. This became a common thread as more speakers came forward.

It seems that there is a simmering anger among young black professionals, who feel suffocated by the slow pace — or total lack — of transformation in their work environments.

Judging by their comments, they find the EFF’s radical policies and its bellicose language attractive. After 20 years of democracy, they feel that the progress in transformation achieved in the early years of democracy has stalled. A recent report on racial transformation by the South African Institute of Race Relations pointed out the slow pace of transformation, with black people occupying only 12% of top management jobs in 2013. The figure was 6% in 2000.

The anger felt at the EFF seminar was directed not only at “white-dominated” firms and industries, but also at an ANC government accused of being more worried about defending its scandal-prone leader than leading the country.

For all the Es and Fs he got in matric, Malema is no fool. He is a smart political player who has focused on vulnerable constituencies. He has attracted unemployed township youth to his party and is now finding resonance among the kind of people who gathered in Midrand.

One of the EFF’s seven “nonnegotiable” pillars for economic freedom is the promise to “promote rapid career paths for Africans in the workplace”.

Whether the party will be able to achieve this remains to be seen.

But if there is any political formation that the ANC is worried about going into the 2014 elections, it is not Mamphela Ramphele’s Agang. Far from it. It is the EFF that is giving the ruling party sleepless nights. And the Democratic Alliance may have lost the opportunity to attract the black middle class after its flip-flop on employment equity.

The mistake that some commentators make is to dismiss the EFF on the grounds of Malema’s well-documented buffoonery, instead of listening to the voices that are beginning to become associated with what the party stands for.

Hlayiseka Chewane, a medical doctor, is on the EFF central command team responsible for organising young professionals.

“We are mobilising the sector because we acknowledge that the economic proposals we have in the EFF can’t find practical meaning until we are able to convince the professionals themselves,” he said.

“We want them to understand that the idea of economic freedom has an impact and meaning in their lives because they are the drivers of this economy, yet they [are bystanders].

“Our policies speak to the frustrations that our middle class encounters in the work space. It’s got nothing to do with Julius Malema,” Chewane said.

He organised the event with Mgcini Tswaku, the EFF’s convener for Gauteng, who is a PhD student in mechanical engineering.

It would be foolish to think that young professionals believe that Malema is their messiah. He is no different from the very ANC leaders whom he maligns every day.

Their support for the EFF is more a protest against the ruling elite and reflects their belief that, through its radical rhetoric, Malema’s party will shake up the political landscape.

The EFF will not win next year’s elections, but if it can harness the support of people like those who came to Midrand, its brash voice is certain to reverberate in parliament.