Where is the support for Gordhan as Malema spews his racist hate, lies and defamation?

It’s all beginning to make sense. With Jacob Zuma finally off centre stage, it’s been surprising that his followers still have the nerve to cock a snook at the new establishment. That they don’t seem to have lost their swagger. It’s now evident they have found a new hero in Julius Malema. He has not only picked up the baton, but is deploying the propaganda tools left by Bell Pottinger even better than Zuma did — white monopoly capital, radical economic transformation and so on, with racist insults thrown in for good measure.

He’s now the leader of the looting brigands; defender of the miscreants who’ve laid waste to this country and made it the laughing stock of the world.

The evidence is overwhelming. Malema and the EFF have come to the defence of Tom Moyane, the man sent by Zuma to destroy the South African Revenue Service. He did such a good job of it that the government had to increase VAT to plug the hole in the fiscus caused by his actions.

The first thing President Cyril Ramaphosa did on taking office was to suspend Moyane, and he has since sacked him. Malema and the EFF have taken up Moyane’s cause, with Dali Mpofu, the red berets’ chair, acting as his defence counsel. Mpofu was looking after Moyane’s interests at the Raymond Zondo commission this week.

Supra Mahumapelo, one of Zuma’s most loyal supporters, who as premier presided over the North West’s descent into desolation and anarchy, has also run to Mpofu for protection from his party.

State enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan, Zuma’s arch-nemesis who probably has more scars than anyone else from bruising fights with Zuma and his merry band of state capturers, is now in Malema’s crosshairs. Gordhan’s case is interesting. He was sacked twice from the finance ministry by Zuma for refusing to do his bidding. He and Nhlanhla Nene, his successor and another Zuma victim, probably saved the country from a fate worse than death.

When the National Prosecuting Authority laid a spurious charge against Gordhan, Malema called on the EFF to come out in his support. They were with him when Zuma dramatically recalled him from an overseas investor road show and eventually fired him, and again when ANC Youth League members harassed him. In other words, Gordhan was regarded as a good guy by the EFF.

But suddenly, we’re told, he’s been an enabler of state capture all along. The volte-face is simply stunning. What’s scarier is not only that the canard is taken as gospel by Malema’s supporters, but that it’s accompanied by the most bloodcurdling racist invective. Somebody is either running scared or getting desperate.

And as a nod to Malema, Zuma this week produced an affidavit in support of Moyane in his case against the state. It was a seal of approval. Zuma was also in effect throwing down the gauntlet at Ramaphosa’s feet. Ramaphosa’s enemies, within the ANC and outside it, are silently cheering Malema’s every insult.

But nothing demonstrates Malema’s leadership of the forces ranged against the project to sort out the destruction wrought by Zuma more than the scenes outside the Zondo commission this week. The EFF descended on the venue like an invading army, with the alleged commander-in-chief letting loose a fusillade of barbs and abuse. The commission, he said, was Mickey Mouse; Paul Pretorius was a bastard; and he didn’t know how Zondo slept at night. It was all criminal stuff but he didn’t seem to care. Arresting him would only make him more of a hero.

But he had Gordhan in his sights. They want him gone, so that they can claim another scalp. Marching with the EFF was Andile Mngxitama’s Black Land First, known Gupta acolytes. They too want us to believe Gordhan is the mastermind behind the widespread corruption.

But Gordhan — diligent, upstanding competent and incorruptible, a rare breed in this era of instant gratification — is being let down by his side. Zondo has repeatedly appealed for people with information to appear before the commission. But when a political party camped outside in a clear attempt to intimidate a witness, the chair kept his own counsel. He should speak up against such disorderly conduct or witnesses will be reluctant to appear.

The silence from Gordhan’s comrades was, as they say, deafening. They seem to cower at the sound of Malema’s insults. It took the ANC days before it could summon the courage to denounce Malema’s vile comments. Ramaphosa had ample opportunity to rebuke those who were trafficking in racism, but he chose not to. “There comes a time when silence is betrayal,” Martin Luther King jnr once said.

The media also has to ask themselves some searching questions. Where Malema is concerned, they completely abdicate their responsibility. Do they have to cover every word, every news conference convened by the leader of a 6% party? They seem to hand over the microphone and go and sit in a corner somewhere.

But it is the government that should be standing up to such ugliness, not just in Gordhan’s defence, but for the sake of the country. The idea, or the dream, of a nonracist society for which so many have given so much is on the line.

At the end of his testimony, Gordhan quoted Martin Niemöller, the German theologian best remembered for his opposition to the Nazi regime, who wrote the poem First they came …

King is also succinct: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”