LETTER: Boks put the boot into Malema’s agenda

Julius Malema’s about turn on his support of the four-time world champion Springboks is even more cynical than Tom Eaton imagines (“From Bok fanboy to Bok fallist, Malema is a shrewd flip-flopper”, November 7).

Malema, probably the niftiest of all the post-Mandela generation of leaders the ANC has cultivated, has assessed the situation correctly and sees that the current presidency is in free fall. President Cyril Ramaphosa is dead as a dodo politically and is merely going through the motions. Malema has seen an opportunity to act before an emerging group of coalitionists takes over the mantle of leadership.

What Malema saw in the euphoria that resulted from the Springboks’ World Cup triumph was the threat posed by a multicultural national rugby team illustrating that things can change for the better when there is commitment by blacks and whites to set a common objective and work together.

Nelson Mandela’s rapprochement with the minority white population post-1993, and the importance of a multicultural SA, went against the stance of ANC Bolsheviks, who required a white bogeyman to marshal the majority population.

After all, Malema is a trained apprentice of grievance politics. The Boks’ success challenges the very foundation of race-based politics.

John Catsicas
Via email

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