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considers himself a kingmaker and so has already made one out of unmaking another and could still self-make another king. Malema’s oratory is one of the things that hold his magic and again this is for better or worse.
He was in Zimbabwe last weekend and judging from reports, he was in his element. He has been called a loose canon and the wrong proclaimer of glad tidings.
A brief search on the Internet shows there are already sites that are dedicated to Malema’s oratory footprint and he is certainly one man who will have a groundswell of “quotable quotes.”
Journalists Max du Preez and Mandy Rossouw have come up with a book titled “The World According to Julius Malema” which according to one reviewer, Isaac Ndlovu, is a collection of 95 “famous and infamous statements”.
The book was published in 2009 and according to Ndlovu’s review, is “a bold move in riding on the popularity wave of this roundly ridiculed, feared, yet powerful young leader by collating and compiling his controversial statements into a 125-page book.”
“The intention of collecting Julius Malema’s quotable quotes seems to have been both to ridicule and to understand what Malema stands for — and it is its immediacy that makes the book worthwhile,” opines Ndlovu.
Some of the quotes from that book include:
l On Julius Malema: “I’m an ordinary young person who’s grown up here in South Africa, from a township, who has no intention — none whatsoever — to scare people.”
l On Zuma’s education: “Zuma was taught by people on the ground. He is the most educated president. Economics is simple — put bread on the table.”
l On politicians who can be replaced: “Politicians are the easiest to replace . . . we will move forward and they will carry on with the programmes which are there.”
l On a two-thirds majority: “We are tired of a two-thirds majority. Our aim is a ‘three-thirds’ majority.”
l On the ANCYL: “We are in a political laboratory; never blame us if we make mistakes, we are (just) learning.”
When Malema came to Zimbabwe, he naturally, left a number of thought-provoking sayings that have come to characterise Julius Malema.
“‘Our struggle is a defined struggle. We are not a lost generation. We are asking what belongs to us. We are not asking for any favour neither are we victimising anybody,” The Herald quoted him as saying at a wedding he attended.
“What we are asking is for them (whites in South Africa) to surrender our minerals because they did not come with any mineral. We want that land and those minerals for free because they never paid for those minerals.”
“We are scared of defeat,” he said, “We don’t want to be defeated, but seeing blood is not what we are scared of as long as that blood delivers what belongs to us we are prepared to go to that extent.
“We want to be remembered as a generation of             economic freedom fighters,” was another gem from Malema.
He was not done.
“There is no favour we are seeking from the UN, nor from the AU. It’s a rightful struggle we must fight,” he said.
“We are not a generation of mini-skirts. We are a generation that continues with the struggle of President Mugabe, of President Mandela,” he also said.
Whatever those that wear miniskirts think, or whatever reference to the same mini-skirts was supposed to mean in this instance, Malema is just one person who is clear on the revolutionary path he is travelling.
His greatest asset yet could be his identification with the masses and the efficacy of his ideas that may as well find currency in places afar.
In Zimbabwe, it has been demonstrated that people are clear on where the wealth of the land, beneath and above, should repose — in the hands of majority.
Zimbabwe has refused to apologise for taking back resources stolen from ancestors such as the land and minerals. In the world of Malema there should be no apologies; here there are no apologies and way are being sought to ensure the majority takes control of its destiny. This is called self-determination.
Is this not what Robert Mugabe and Nelson Mandela fought for? The desire for self-determination is held by every man and woman, boy and girl. This should not scare anyone, as indeed should Malema’s just call for equality not.
All progressive and just forces of the world should rally for equality and access to resources by all peoples.
It is rather sad that institutions such as the African Union and the United Nations have not been proactive in buttressing the need for sovereign access of resources by people in light of the stranglehold that erstwhile colonisers and their corporations continue to hold over peoples’ resources.
Malema was as compelling as ever in his argument that, “These borders you see are artificial demarcations imposed on us by imperialists. They are not of our own making and so we cannot use their gate to determine our relationship. Ours is a blood relationship and blood will remain thicker than water. That’s what brings us together.”
And whatever happened to the dream of United States of Africa? The Malema magic in the statement above is that he shows a statesmanship that dates back to the days of the first African president, former Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah.
A united Africa is one that should carry the weight of numbers so as to have a raucous say in world affairs.
Malema knows what must be done.
He said: “For our ideas to be sustainable, we have to reproduce ourselves. In the whole of Africa, we are not more than one billion and the world has got seven billion people. In Africa we have not more than one billion people.
“What it means is that we have gone less than a billion people in Africa facing more than six billion. We have to be half of that so that our ideas can dominate. I know that in some instances size does not matter . . . but when it comes to a revolution, size matters.”
These words carry the thunder.
They carry the magic in their being universally sensible. It is this sort of ideas that will outlive the Malema of today and certainly outshine even countless gold watches he may buy for himself.
Malema is a visionary — there can be no doubt about it. And perhaps that is why he can be impatient with the elders who do not see beyond their noses.