JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
JULIUS Malema and his Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) assembled in Boipotong Stadium on Friday, to commemorate June 16, Youth Day. Seeing images of huge crowds in red colours on social media, I was terrified.
Watching EFF’s rallies, and listening to its leaders speak, is always distressing. This is a political movement founded on the principles of hate, racism, discrimination, and total disregard for human liberties.
The party’s leader, Julius Malema, the toxic firebrand, has over the past years made several malicious comments widely condemned by civil rights organisations and South Africans at large.
From his utterances that he was prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma in 2008, when he was still in the African National Congress (ANC), to saying that they will remove the current government through the barrel of a gun, not long ago as leader of the EFF.
Malema and his party believe government should run banks, businesses, mines, take peoples’ properties by force, and so much more that violates human rights and undermines South Africa’s young democracy.
That a party so rotten sits in our legislature is an utter disgrace, and highlights a much deeper, unsettling problem about South Africa. That problem is a lack of political education, and no understanding of global economic and political history.
The ideas Malema and his party sell as a solution to South Africa’s socioeconomic problems, have been tried before, and failed dismally. Actually even today they are still being tried in countries like Venezuela, North Korea, and Cuba. And guess what? All these countries are poor, and ruled by despots who repress civil liberties and muzzle the press.
For decades, the Soviet Union experimented with Malema’s ideas – to no prosperity. Government in the Soviet Union decided everything about the economy: What to produce. When to produce it. By whom. At what price it should be sold and bought. The government planning committee that was known as Gosplan supervised the aspects of economic activity. Even television programs were under government’s control – and were all pro-regime, communist propaganda.
During this era in the Soviet Union, millions were murdered under the communist oppression – by their governments. It’s estimated that 20 million people were killed in the Soviet Union alone. Add to that the other millions killed in other communist regimes around the world, you have a total estimate of 94 million people killed in the 20th century, under this disgusting ideology.
A remarkable organization called Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, has devoted itself to remembering victims of this deadly ideology; documenting their pain, and teaching the world about the dangers of communism – a worldview advocated by Malema and his party, EFF.
In his piece published in the Daily Signal, writing about a new despicable book, titled Communism For Kids, Jarrett Stepman writes that violence or use of force is a feature in a communist system, not a bug.
Stepman is right. Because people tend to rightly resist government’s seizure of their assets in a communist system – government then uses the military or police to enforce its policies. The result is horror.
Malema and his EFF have, many times, shown what South Africa would look like if they were to get into power. Look at their rage, and the turmoil they have caused at the parliament since they came in. Look at the criminal land grabs they have committed. Look at their previous spiteful utterances aimed at South Africa’s minorities. The signs are clearer, and petrifying.
The EFF coming to power, would be the biggest setback since the end of apartheid. Their rule would be characterized by racism, government theft, deadly violence, censorship of the press, skyrocketing political imprisonments, disappearance of political activists, and many other violations of human rights – classic communism. The consequences would be more dire for Nelson Mandela’s South Africa.
One thing we should remember though, most importantly, is that leaders of the EFF did not get themselves where they are today – they were voted by the people. That suggests the problem is much deeper than the party; it very much has to do with our politically uneducated society that votes for these dangerous clowns.
The EFF scares me. You should also be scared. This party is a complete disgrace to South Africa. We need real, sustainable policies that will grow the economy, create jobs, and end poverty. Not EFF’s destructive dogma.
I do not want to see South Africa turned into Soviet Union where millions died. Do you? PM
© PHUMLANI M. MAJOZI