Julius Malema and the BBC

Saturday's Telegraph had a very interesting article about 'The man playing South Africa's death card' and described the tactics being used by Julius Malema to stir up trouble in South Africa. It's a chilling piece to anyone who sees South Africa as a still salvageable country. Here are some extracts:

'Malema was in Harare, feasting with Robert Mugabe and picking up tips on how best to destroy the teetering remnants of Western influence here in South Africa. Terreblanche's murder was an individual tragedy. Malema's actions threaten to destroy an entire subcontinent.

Julius Malema is a chubby man-child who rose to prominence as Jacob Zuma's attack dog, threatening violence against anyone who sought to block the Zulu patriarch's rise to the state presidency. When Zuma emerged triumphant, Malema found himself in the pound seats. A poorly educated 28-year-old, he mysteriously acquired two posh houses, a fleet of cars and an obscenely expensive Breitling watch – curious accessories for a man who positions himself as champion of the poor.

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...he picked a fight with cabinet minister Jeremy Cronin, South Africa's most visible white Communist, who had dared to opine that his enthusiasm for nationalisation had much to do with a fondness for bling and nothing to do with the plight of the poor. In response, Malema reportedly sent Cronin a threatening SMS: "Wait to see what's coming to you."

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On his trip to Harare, Malema was met at the airport by a clutch of notorious profiteers whose connection to the great dictator enabled them to grow rich even as their country died. These "vultures" are said to be slavering at the prospect of another killing as Mugabe moves to dismember Zimbabwe's last surviving businesses and mines in the name of "indigenisation".

By all accounts, Malema was thrilled to make their acquaintance. They organised a crowd to sing his controversial song about shooting Boers. Then they whisked him off in a presidential Mercedes Benz and put him up in Harare's most expensive hotel. In return, Malema expressed his unqualified admiration for the policies that have ruined Zimbabwe and vowed to press for their adoption south of the Limpopo River.

"In South Africa, we are just starting," said Malema. "Here you are already very far. We are very happy today that you can account for more than 300,000 new farmers, against the 4,000 who used to dominate agriculture. We hear you are now going straight to the mines. That's what we are going to be doing in South Africa. We want the mines. They have been exploiting our minerals for a long time. Now it's our turn also to enjoy from those minerals…"

On Thursday, Malema reiterated these sentiments at a press conference marked by an ugly racial attack on a BBC reporter. There has been no repudiation. The silence says something truly ominous: Malema has protection. Someone in the ANC – either the president himself, or an awesomely powerful faction inside the party – is encouraging him to rally the masses for a Zimbabwe-style obliteration of Africa's only viable economy and last surviving hope.


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If you ask me, Malema is the point-man for a powerful ANC faction whose motive is greed and whose chosen weapon is racial demagoguery of the most primitive kind.

The trouble is that this card trumps all others. Our underclass is huge, poorly educated and desperately poor. They know what happened in Zimbabwe, but even so, the prospect of loot is irresistible, and that's Malema's bait. Mandela gave them free houses. Mbeki gave them welfare grants, leading to a situation where five million taxpayers support 13 million indigents, with the total rising far more rapidly than our ability to pay. Now Malema and the faceless vultures behind him are offering them the rest. They are playing the death card, the Ace of Spades. '

Meanwhile how are the BBC reporting the Julius Malema's verbal attack on one of their own reporters? The answer is obvious, not at all. You see after years of chanting "Free Nelson Mandela" in the 1980s and worshipping the 'living saint' that is Nelson Mandela in the 1990s the BBC still see the ANC as freedom fighters and the rightful rulers of South Africa. Thus the humiliation of one of their own interviewers by an ANC chief is just not worth mentioning. The BBC would far rather exult at the savage murder of Eugene Terreblanche as Omid Djalili and another did recently.

South Africa could be going down the same violent route as Zimbabwe and the BBC will not realise or report this until it is way too late. If you are a white South African farmer, then my advice is get out now. If you are a white South African mine owner or manager, then my advice is get out now. If you are a white South African business man, then my advice is start planning your escape. Finally if you are a white South African property owner, you may want to consider planning your exit for climes that may be less warm but somewhat safer; may I recommend the Mediterranean.