GARETH VAN ONSELEN: Julius Malema’s contempt for black South Africans

Here is a question: why is it that no one in the media stands up to Julius Malema?

Sure, there are critical columns here and there and his more incendiary remarks generate a small amount of negative coverage on the day. But fundamentally and in any meaningful way, no one takes a hard line. The man is a disgrace, his policy programme constitutes an economic wrecking ball and his politics is infused with racist vitriol and the threat of violence. But, in the mainstream media, he does not suffer the commensurate reputation.

Three reasons explain this. The first is that Malema is, in many respects, a journalist himself. Certainly the ultimate outsider-insider when it comes to the ANC. The media relies on him to provide what it cannot: direct access into the ANC’s inner universe. He is, in this sense, an invaluable commodity, certainly to a far greater degree than any other politician. And so he is feted for his intel.

Second, the South African media cares primarily about personality. It does not do analysis, of principle or organisations and definitely not over time. It lives in a bubble. And the bubble is now. In that fishbowl, Malema splashes more than most. All anger and hate, delivered in bite-size chunks. Nothing sells better. And so he is celebrated for his outrageousness, even though he is duplicitous, contradictory and devious.

Malema splashes more than most. All anger and hate, delivered in bite-size chunks. Nothing sells better. And so he is celebrated for his outrageousness, even though he is duplicitous, contradictory and devious

The unofficial agreement between the mainstream media and Malema is this: we will regard your rhetoric as a game, so long as you keep delivering headlines. It has been a profitable arrangement.

But third, and most importantly, the South African media is weak. Especially on race. And it is at its weakest when racial insult and denigration is aimed at black South Africans, by black South Africans, as is the EFF’s wont. That kind of racism might as well not exist at all, for all the attention it gets.

What the media refuses to understand or comprehend, is that most EFF racial stereotypes, although ostensibly aimed at "whites", contain within them an implicit and derogatory assumption about "blacks". And that is before those outright assaults on black or Indian South Africans per se, whom the EFF and its supporters malign and vilify every day, for no reason other than that they disagree with the party or its ideology.

And so Malema is championed as a "truth teller". It will be acknowledged his comments are unpalatable and not in good taste. He is a naughty little rascal, that Malema. But really, not to be taken too seriously. Certainly not dangerous in any real way. He is a necessary evil, so to speak, one that keeps "whites" on their feet, in the name of "black pain" and injustice. As the supposed champion of black South Africans, he has fireproofed his reputation somewhat because, in perhaps the ultimate racist assumption on the media’s part, he is black after all, so he must know what he is talking about.

The first two reasons have been expounded upon at some considerable length. The third, however — Malema’s and the EFF’s racial contempt for black South Africans — has not.

Let us look at it in a little more detail.

In justifying his call to initiate a motion of no confidence against the DA’s Nelson Mandela Bay mayor, Athol Trollip, Malema recently said the following: "We need to take that away from them, to teach [whites] a lesson to make them appreciate that we mean business when it comes to land." He said, "We don’t care about white feelings" and "We are cutting the throat of whiteness."

As of the 2016 local government elections, at a rough estimate (safely assuming it has about 6% of all black voters), the DA represents around 800,000 black South Africans. That is more than the IFP (636,000), the UDM (91,000) and the Congress of the People (67,000) combined.

That’s 800,000 free thinking, independent-minded black South Africans. What lesson is Malema supposedly teaching them?

As the supposed champion of black South Africans, he has fireproofed his reputation somewhat because, in perhaps the ultimate racist assumption on the media’s part, he is black after all, so he must know what he is talking about

There are few groups in SA, more marginalised, denigrated and disparaged than black, liberal DA voters. They have to be some of the bravest people in the country, as are all black opposition voters. They are not just attacked and belittled on a daily basis as "sell-outs", "coconuts" or "House Negros" (do yourself a favour and look at some of the comments black DA representatives get on social media from the EFF and ANC hordes, all without repercussion) but literally written out of the public mind all together, in the fashion Malema does. As if they didn’t exist at all. They are, to his mind, entirely illegitimate.

And, outside of the DA, they have no champion. No one willing to understand or explore who they are and why they have made the choices they have, or to stand up for them.

The reason is because the media tends to assume, as Malema would have them believe, he is the true, authentic voice of black South Africans. That he knows what black South Africans want and desire, how they feel, what they should believe and how they should act. So deeply and fundamentally ingrained into Malema is this sort of racial stereotyping, he is effectively a slave to it. Apartheid did so much damage but perhaps the worst part of its legacy is psychological. It has certainly left a deep scar on Malema’s own psyche. Ironically, for all his posturing on racism towards black South Africans, he replicates the very ideas he claims to be fighting.

So the DA has the support of 800,000 black South Africans, the majority of Indian and Coloured voters too, a black leader, black mayors, a diverse caucus, black activists, but still the media would have it: "The DA needs to shake the perception it is a ‘white party’" — the phrase the media so often uses to intimate what it really feels. Who perceives of it as a "white Party"? Not those 800,000 black DA voters. But what do their views matter, right?

Those are facts. But facts don’t matter either. Not when assumptions such as those Malema advocates are mirrored at large. Given the facts, this "perception" everyone alludes to can only be ideology. That a black South African could apply their mind and arrive at the conclusion they agree with the DA’s values and principles cannot be conceived of, let alone stomached. They must be fools. All fools. Black people don’t vote DA. They are black, after all.

There is no greater advocate in SA today for group think and racial stereotyping than Julius Malema, and black South Africans are at the heart of it.

It is sad to watch Malema spitting and frothing in his contempt for black South Africans that disagree with him. His assumption that, unless black South Africans think and behave like him, they are somehow "less than" can be appalling. His recent denigration of Mosiuoa Lekota was nothing short of disgraceful. "Comrade Terror, when you went to Robben Island you were in black consciousness", he said in Parliament, "When you came back you were a historical mistake."

Lekota is a national hero. Brave too. Whatever his politics, he was willing to do the one thing the ANC has always discouraged: think for himself. Malema parrots an army general. He has seen no war. Been to no prison. But he exudes arrogance and self-righteousness. Lekota fought for him to have that right. Malema spits on it, in the name of racial solidarity.

Lekota, just like all those black DA voters, is deemed illegitimate. Malema is the bringer of the light and diviner of the way. If you are a black South African, and you do not think like him, then you do not exist. Malema would have it he strives for the liberation of black South Africans, that they be educated, free and self-confident but only in so far as they must agree with him. When they don’t, he doesn’t attack their ideas, he attacks their soul, viciously and personally. And because the EFF wins so few arguments, given the absurdity of so many of its policies, it goes straight away to the only path left open to it: racial abuse.

Truth is, it is subservience Malema is after. It is archetypes he embraces. And it is one-dimensional thought he wishes to see. This man is not a liberator, he is an oppressor.

Don’t think this is a personal trait either. This contempt for black South Africans is intricately woven into EFF policy. It is the state, over which Malema wishes to preside as president, that must control people’s lives. Mines, banks, the land — all of this must be handed over to an administration Malema controls. That he might assume his role as the ultimate patriarch, looking over his children. Black South Africans, weak, without agency, hapless victims must invest in him, totally. The true father of "black interests".

There is no greater advocate in SA today for group think and racial stereotyping than Julius Malema, and black South Africans are at the heart of it

If Jacob Zuma turned the South African state into a giant patronage network, even he had nothing on the EFF. Malema’s heroes are Mao and Stalin, and more abusive fathers you will struggle to find. But they all believed they were the people and the people were them.

Malema’s various attacks on white South Africans should not be dismissed as a rhetorical game. They are poisonous indeed, but it is important to remember they serve merely as a mechanism through which he can talk to his real audience: black South Africans. "Whiteness" is the door through which Malema’s contempt for black South Africans passes unchecked. All he is constantly telling them is: unless you support me, you have no mind of your own. No agency. No legitimate world view or belief system.

You are fools. Certainly, that is what he is telling those 800,000 black DA voters. You cannot think. Cannot exercise judgement. Cannot arrive at an independent view. You have all been duped. Idiots, the lot of you. But because Malema is a coward, he cannot say that directly. So he delivers the message by inference.

He uses "whiteness" to denigrate all minorities as illegitimate in this way. The EFF’s Twitter account reported Malema as saying, "Chinese are like Indians. They think they’re close to whiteness." Malema has a special contempt for Indian South Africans, a particularly powerful scorn. They cannot think, he is saying, unless they think like me. Unless they think "black", and I am the gatekeeper of that particular fantasy. It’s why Malema is rightly described as a fascist.

But all this matters very little, because in the mainstream media Malema generally has the ultimate facilitator for his particular brand of hate. So long as he uses "whiteness" as the frame of reference for his anger and range, he can denigrate by inference those black South Africans that disagree with him to his heart’s content. He will never be called out — because, secretly, so many believe he is right: black South Africans must surely agree with Malema, he seems to be so genuinely and deeply passionate about their plight. Those 800,000 black DA voters are, indeed, all fools.

The grand irony inherent to all of this is that what Malema and the EFF are really doing, despite all their anti-ANC vitriol, is the ANC’s work for it. Malema’s racial stereotyping was learnt in the ANC. It is born of the ANC. And the ANC, not the EFF, currently dominates the racial hegemony stakes. Ironically, the ANC itself is clearly on a mission to get Malema to "come home". Back to the home of all black South Africans. Their only real home.

It seems to be working. Of course it is. Because Malema must play by his own rules. You see, he, just like all those DA voters he pretends don’t exist, those misguided fools, is but a misguided fool himself. He is black, after all. By his own foolish logic, ultimately, there is only one home for him. He’ll be back, in one form or another, soon enough, if he isn’t already.

As for all those black South Africans not trapped by the ANC’s and EFF’s racial stereotyping, brave enough to withstand the bullying and emotional blackmail, free to think independently and exercise their own considerable judgement, that is where the future of SA lies.

• Van Onselen is the head of politics and governance at the South African Institute of Race Relations.