Shakespeare in Henry VIII has a lesson for Julius Malema.
What a passionate leader is Malema! What gifts for enthusing his people! What bold rallying calls! But how tragically misdirected — directed toward destruction.
Toward seizing our economic engine — the land and all that’s on it. Toward seizing the banks, the very sap of our industry.
“No man’s pie/ Is safe from his ambitious finger”. He would set the country ablaze.
The warning in Act One, Scene One has resonance: “Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot/ That it do singe thyself”.
Were Malema but directed to rallying our different peoples toward employing their talents to our common good, to serving our nation as brothers, we could grow, and keep growing, until we can outgrow the West.
We have that which it takes. Let hatred, therefore, yield to goodwill. Goodwill of each toward all. Let us build, let us invest in ourselves. Let us invest ourselves, and all our means, and all our talents.
Let us invest all these toward building a great nation. Only Malema himself can change his destructive course: “There is no ... soul/ More stronger to direct you than yourself/ If with the sap of reason you would quench/ Or but allay the fire of passion.”
Willem Cronje
Cape Town
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