Two opposition leaders took potshots at African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) leader Julius Malema during a special Human Rights Day debate in a joint sitting of both houses of Parliament on Tuesday.
Pieter Mulder, the leader of the Freedom Front Plus, who is also deputy minister for agriculture and fisheries in the Zuma Cabinet, said that Malema is an ill-disciplined, rude and conflict-seeking juvenile.
“He is not only an embarrassment to the ANC, but to the whole of South Africa,” Mulder said. “He mocks each one of the ANC leaders who sit in Parliament. Why does the ANC not act against him? Are you scared of him? Do you not have the courage to, in the interest of South Africa, call him to order?”
Helen Zille, leader of the Democratic Alliance and Premier of the Western Cape, spoke to the joint sitting about George Orwell’s concept of “doublethink”. “This involves holding two contradictory ideas in one’s head at the same time and believing both of them,” she said. “Doublethink involves distorting history and reality — and then denying the distortion so that you can believe your own propaganda.”
‘The irony was lost on Malema’
Zille said: “Take Julius Malema propagating the nationalisation of mines, even as he brokers lucrative private mining deals to enrich himself. Or his advice to the youth of South Africa. Only a year ago, Malema said: ‘You must never role model a rich person who can’t explain how they got rich. In the ANC we must not have corrupt people as role models. Corrupt means a simple thing — you can’t explain the big amount in your bank account. In less than a year, you have got everything. Yesterday you were down and out, but today you have everything which shows in your fancy dress code.’
“The irony was lost on Malema, with his Breitling watch, his Armani jeans, his various multimillion-rand homes and top-of-the-range vehicles. This contradiction symbolises the ANC today. It is the outcome of the doublethink of the national democratic revolution. It inevitably leads to cronyism, corruption and the criminal state. It is a party professing to advance people’s rights, even as it erodes them.”
The Western Cape premier insisted that the ANC exemplifies doublethink. “Our president urges people to take personal responsibility in the fight against HIV/Aids, while personally doing the opposite; he proclaims zero tolerance in the fight against corruption, and then fails to declare his assets; he proclaims allegiance to the Constitution, but is destroying its independent institutions; he claims to champion the poor, but adopts empowerment policies that enrich only the small politically connected elite.
“That is doublethink. And double-thinking governments destroy people’s rights, limit their freedoms, and undermine their opportunities — even as their leaders claim to promote the people’s interests.
“This is what happens in the closed, crony society for comrades only. It is the culmination of the doublethink inherent in the ANC’s national democratic revolution.” — I-Net Bridge