Monday night
Carloads of journalists prowl the streets of Johannesburg in search of a rumoured night vigil to support Julius Malema, ahead of Tuesday’s hearing. But nobody is quite sure whether it’s happening.
By 7pm, in Beyers Naudé Square, the media outnumber about 50 supporters from the Communication Workers’ Union. Where are the busloads of ANC Youth League protesters who are supposed to bring the city to a standstill?
Then, at 9pm, everything changes. The square is submerged in a tide of ANC yellow as taxis spill out their passengers. Youth league leaders from different provinces shake hands and embrace. Others jam in a circle, the strongest voices leading the singing.
“Malema is our chief, our commander. We are here to show our support and if the ANC tries him, they must try all of us,” says Jimmy Tlokwane from Alexandra, Johannesburg.
Next to him, a group has just arrived from Mangaung in the Free State. That’s where the future of President Jacob Zuma will be decided next year, they declare. That’s when they’ll get the leader they want.
By 10pm there are a couple of hundred people in the square. The mood is festive. Inside an ever-expanding circle dancers pass around bottles of brandy. A strong whiff of marijuana mingles with the smell of pap and chicken, as vendors move in.
By 3am the party has died down. Only a die-hard group of supporters and journalists remains. There’s still no sign of the promised busloads.
Tuesday
Violence. Anger. Volatile energy. Slurs and insults hurled like weapons, with the bricks and bottles. That’s what categorises day one of the Malema hearing.
By mid-morning thousands of ANC Youth League members have poured into the city centre.
The ANC flag goes up in flames.
So do T-shirts bearing Jacob Zuma’s face.
“S’funu Juju, S’funu Juju [We want Juju, we want Juju],” they sing. “Zuma o masipa a gona yo swanago lewena! [Zuma you are a shit, there is no one like you].”
Then, a taunting chant designed to enrage the police: “Sex, sex, sex!” A reminder of the “police sex tape”, splashed on the Sowetan newspaper’s front page.
Suddenly there’s a roar from the crowd. Some young people have climbed on top of an armoured truck and the police are driving off with them still clinging to the roof. The protesters are furious. They throw rocks and the police retaliate with water cannons.
But this is all happening on the frontline, next to the police cordon and barbed wire. Just a few metres away, in Beyers Naudé Square, hundreds of others are holding a quieter gathering. Their voices may be calmer, but their support for Malema is no less strong.
“He is innocent. He has said all this before. Why they want to charge him now, we don’t know,” says Gelly Sibanyoni, a woman from Mpumalanga.
A man from Limpopo, who doesn’t want to be named, says: “There is a vendetta against him [Malema]. They [Zuma’s faction] are setting the score for 2012 [the ANC elective conference] because they know they are not going to win.”
Behind him, another large crowd sings and dances down the streets. Others buy pap and meat from street vendors. At R30 a meal, the vendors say protests are good for business.
Wednesday
Downtown Johannesburg is strangely calm. A man brushes his teeth with water from a bottle as traffic streams past. Yesterday’s vendors are back, now selling ANC-branded clothes and Chappies. Joanne Ferreira, manager of the local Wimpy, says her usual customers are still staying away, but she is doing a good trade in comfort food for journalists and the police.
The site of the protest is muddy: littered with empty packets of ice-pops. Municipal workers are trying to fix a pipe, broken by people needing water. The trees that protesters climbed yesterday look bare, their branches snapped.
There are still a few Malema supporters. But today they’re not talking; not when they hear the word “media”. Many say that journalists have twisted their words. Some give examples and say they “got into trouble” as a result.
A man from Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal, says he and his friends slept in their bus last night. “This is not a holiday, we are cadres,” he says, nevertheless adding that today, they’ll go home. They have things to do.
But it’s not over, he warns. “The young lions are roaring and you are all listening.”
For more news and multimedia on ANC Youth League president Julius Malema click here.
