Julius Malema, the maestro of verbal theatrics, conducts his political symphony with a baton made of barbs and bluster. His linguistic escapades are an absolute buffet of crudeness, serving up a feast of offensive jabs that leave his opponents reeling. While his loyal fans treat his every utterance like gospel, critics are left to ponder whether he is a revolutionary or just a loud jester in the court of politics.
By Themba Khumalo
Julius Malema is South Africa’s linguistic maestro of political theatre whose penchant for crude language is like a fine wine—if that wine were fermented in a barrel of insults and served with a side of controversy.
With a vocabulary that could make a sailor blush, Malema swings his words like a sledgehammer, mercilessly smashing his real and imagined political foes. While his fans cheer him on like he is the rock star of rhetoric, critics clutch their pearls, horrified by the verbal carnage.
Put Malema’s foul language aside for a heartbeat; the guy is trapped in a self-constructed chamber of paranoia. From the scant and essentially useless information I have cobbled together, I know that a paranoid politician views the world as a conspiracy-laden stage, draping every event in a shroud of impending doom. They obsess over the “enemy” driven rise and fall of their parties, mourning the supposed death threats to genuine revolutions and the disintegration of allegedly superior, progressive and valued political systems.
As the days crawl by, we find ourselves in prime viewing position, some of us utterly devoid of remorse, watching Malema descend into a dark hole of paranoia and self-pity, like a tragic actor in a never-ending play, lost in his dramatic monologue.
Just the other day, Juju was in front of the media, putting on a dramatic show and claiming the departure of prominent EFF figures to the MK Party was like a dagger aimed straight at his heart. He tried to downplay his emotional anguish, insisting it was important not to take this “betrayal” personally. Still, the very words he chose screamed of a much more profound, personal torment lurking just beneath his bravado.
Juju could have simply made claims that the likes of Floyd Shivambu and Dali Mpofu were trying to chip away at the EFF’s credibility, but that would have been far too dull. Instead, he opted for the Olympic-level exaggeration, dubbing their actions “an assassination attempt.” It is a quintessential example of turning a political squabble into a sensational horror flick as if he is the innocent victim of a dark conspiracy rather than just another player in the savage game of politics.
For Juju, watching his party crumble is like a tragic soap opera drenched in his own melodrama. It is no shocker, really; the party has always been a warped mirror reflecting his chaotic identity, wild ambitions, and endless gripes. After he howled about “an assassination attempt”, the line between his personal vendettas and political games blurred into a chaotic smear.
He told all and sundry that he would cosy up to any businessman if his sworn enemy was Zuma’s Mkhonto.
The message couldn’t be more precise: to join forces with Juju, you don’t need to buy into his grand dreams of fighting poverty or battling White Monopoly Capital. No, the only ticket to the EFF’s inner circle is a shared loathing for Jacob Zuma, the man who has, yet again, thrown a wrench into Juju’s already shaky political ambitions.
Juju’s fanciful figments of his overactive imagination.
Malema never lets an opportunity slip by to howl about how his lofty ambitions and the EFF’s progress are permanently under siege. He is always whining about the never-ending hostility he encounters from the entrenched political class and the affluent elite as if they are all part of a sinister cabal determined to sabotage his noble cause for radical economic transformation.
In this melodramatic saga, he portrays himself as the gallant saviour of the marginalised, eternally clashing with the formidable forces threatening to extinguish his righteous movement’s revolutionary light.
Juju’s political neuroses are concocted from a volatile cocktail of self-righteous beliefs, a history marred by strife, and an unwavering conviction that he and the EFF are the last hope against overwhelming political and economic tyranny.
While some revere him as a beacon for the marginalised, a significant number perceive his methods as overly aggressive, laced with paranoia that could easily be mistaken for the ramblings of a conspiracy nut.
Like a raging storm, his confrontational and vulgar approach saturates the air with tension, casting a shadow of suspicion over every word he utters and action he takes.
Could Juju be a living archive of conspiracy theories, filled with intriguing insights and hidden truths? Asazi!