Malema’s militancy has roots in his childhood

A 13-year-old Julius Malema wielding a gun probably best encapsulates the early militancy of the Economic Freedom Fighters’ (EFF) leader. 

Testifying in April 2011 during his hate speech trial, which was brought against him by lobby groups AfriForum and the Transvaal Agricultural Union over the EFF president’s insistence on singing the old struggle song, Dubula ibhunu (Shoot the boer), Malema spoke of how violence was part of his early political education. 

It is a militancy that Malema has prided himself on; a militancy that is a recurring theme of his political life. 

Responding to questions from Roelof du Plessis, the agricultural union’s legal representative, Malema said he had been taught how to handle and shoot a gun at the age of 13. 

“I have always been a Young Pioneer of the African National Congress,” Malema said at the time. Masupatsela, or the Young Pioneers, is an ANC structure for children up to the age of 14. 

“You were taught to shoot people?” Du Plessis asked Malema. 

“Yes,” Malema answered. 

“And you would have done so [kill people], if the instruction came at [age] 13?,” Du Plessis asked, to which Malema responded, “Yes.” 

The Equality Court ruled that the song was hate speech, rendering it illegal to sing it. 

Born in the township of Seshego in Polokwane, Limpopo, on 3 March 1981, Malema rose to prominence when was the national president of the Congress of South African Students (Cosas). 

In May 2002, when he was 21 years old and a year out of high school, having matriculated at Mohlakaneng High School in Seshego, Malema led a march of thousands of schoolchildren through Johannesburg’s city centre. 

The protest was against the Gauteng education department’s directive that school gates should be locked during learning hours for safety reasons. 

What followed was rioting, looting and destruction of property as the schoolchildren made their way through the city’s streets — typical of Cosas protests during that era. 

It would be eight years before Malema would again make the headlines — when he was elected ANC Youth League president in April 2008, during a rowdy conference in Mangaung, Free State, that was dubbed the “festival of bums”. 

Photographs on the pages of national newspapers showed youth league members with their pants down during a tense elective conference where Malema won by a narrow 137 votes from more than 3 520 delegates. 

If the country had not yet taken notice of the new youth league leader at a raucous gathering, these words, uttered in June 2008 during a Free State rally, would: “We are prepared to die for [Jacob] Zuma … We are prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma.”

These strong words, which Malema later said he used figuratively, were uttered during a time when Zuma, who had been elected ANC leader seven months prior, was facing corruption and fraud charges related to the arms deal of the late 1990s. 

The charges against Zuma were dropped in 2009, just before the April general election, paving the way for him to ascend to the Union Buildings as the country’s leader.

There was no shortage of colourful language during Malema’s youth league tenure, including a rant he delivered against a BBC journalist in April 2010, calling the reporter a “bloody agent”, and telling him not to act “tjatjarag” (a nuisance) inside a “revolutionary building” — the ANC’s headquarters, Luthuli House. 

Then things went sour between Malema, Zuma and the ANC, leading to the February 2012 expulsion of the ANC youth league leader from the party, nearly eight months after he had been re-elected the youth league’s president. 

Malema was booted out over a number of controversial public statements, including his utterances about setting up a “Botswana command team” to look at overthrowing the Botswana Democratic Party, under the presidency of Ian Khama. 

Having repeatedly stated that he would die a member of the ANC no matter what — “my blood is black, green and gold,” he asserted after his expulsion, referring to the party’s colours — Malema formed the EFF in July 2013. 

The EFF gained a credible 25 seats in the national assembly after the May 2014 general election, with the party garnering more than 1.1-million votes, or 6%, of the total votes cast. 

The EFF has been shaped around Malema’s affinity for militancy, with the leader known as the “commander-in-chief”, and senior leaders of the organisation known as “commissars”, while party members are called “fighters”. 

EFF vote share in the 2021 election by municipality

Toggle the map to show the change in vote share since 2014. Blue areas indicate municipal boundary changes over time which are not comparable.

The party, with more than 1.8-million votes, gained 44 seats in the national assembly after the 2019 general election and recently received 10.6% of the total national votes cast in last year’s local government elections. The EFF has grown steadily, attracting supporters through policies such as the call to expropriate land without compensation, making the state the custodian of all land in the country and the nationalisation of key industries such as mining and the financial sector. 

When Malema stood on the edge of a stage in Mdantsane in the Eastern Cape in July 2018, brandishing and firing into the night sky what seemed to be a high-calibre rifle, he landed himself in legal trouble. His trial for the illegal discharge of a firearm begins later this month. 

But that image, during the EFF’s fifth anniversary celebrations, is also a symbol for the militancy of Malema’s politics, which began at the age of 13.

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