The Big Read: Right honourable thugs

Economic Freedom Fighters MP Floyd Shivambu is irritating, disrespectful, pompous and can be a loud mouth.

That, however, does not mean that he deserves to be killed. As an MP voted in by more than 1.1million South Africans he is allowed to ask questions, make interventions and participate fully in the life and work of our parliament.

ANC MP and former minister Charles Nqakula clearly has other ideas. Last week, at a meeting of the parliamentary powers and privileges committee, Nqakula called Shivambu a "silly boy" and said he would "not tolerate nonsense" from the EFF MP. He reminded Shivambu that he, Nqakula, was an uMkhonto weSizwe member who had been prepared to kill because he "would not tolerate nonsense from the apartheid racist regime".

What? I don't know how you read that. Personally I think it is a death threat and that Nqakula should, at the very least, have been reprimanded. He wasn't. That makes me worried.

Are we headed for violent clashes between the ANC and the EFF? The temperature has been rising since the May 7 elections and threats of violence from each side have been on the increase.

Just a few weeks ago, during a heated debate in the National Assembly, ANC MP Mandla Mandela told EFF MP Godrich Gardee, in Xhosa: "We can meet now - outside."

This was after an EFF march to the Gauteng legislature - in which the party sought to force through a demand that its MPLs be allowed to wear their trademark red overalls - turned violent. Police fired rubber bullets and teargas as EFF supporters threw stones and rushed the legislature building.

Something is wrong here. First, why is the ANC's reaction to the EFF so prickly, so fearful? Why has the ANC become so paranoid about what the EFF represents and could become?

This paranoia can be seen in ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe's analysis of the threat he says is posed by the EFF. At a media briefing in Joburg, he said the EFF were "fascists" whose end goal might be to overthrow the government. He wasn't giving his personal opinion: he was giving the ANC national working committee's view.

"This movement uses uniforms to mobilise in the same way that Hitler used brown shirts in the 1930s. The worrying factor in this regard is its use of anarchy and destruction as its modus operandi.

"This anarchy and destruction fit into the paramilitary content of their strategy, which shows early signs of a rebel movement designed and calculated to undermine democracy and state institutions .

"We should wake up and smell the coffee. The Nazis didn't start by killing the Jews; they started by making policies and developed their uniform of brown shirts. When it was in power, only then did it [the Nazi party] kill the Jews."

Deputy Minister in The Presidency Buti Manamela, in a speech in parliament, also compared EFF leader Julius Malema to Hitler.

What's wrong with this analysis?

First, it makes Malema out to be a bigger threat to our democracy than he actually is. Malema is huge in the ANC's eyes because he shines a wicked light where the ANC is at its weakest: at ANC President Jacob Zuma's numerous corruption scandals, in a way only an insider knows how.

Is Malema a Hitler? Well, perhaps he will be one if corruption and wastage flourishes under the ANC. Those who rush to embrace his message do so largely because the ANC is failing abysmally at combating poverty, unemployment and inequality.

The more the ANC fails to grapple with the key questions confronting us all the more paranoid it will be about Malema. A cursory examination of the ANC's record over the first 100 days of this parliamentary term shows confusion, panic and no logic. It is incredible that this is Zuma's second term - it feels as if novices are in charge.

The EFF are no angels. Events at the Gauteng legislature show that they have a thirst for violence. Worse, with only 6.35% of the vote, it is clear that they like the fact that violence and disruption grab the headlines. One is yet to see any real substance behind that noise and anarchy. What did the howling down of Zuma in parliament achieve? Nothing.

Yet we should be worried. Leaders of these two parties are making too many threats. There is too much loose talk. The temperature is being cranked up unnecessarily. There are no cool heads. The ANC's mobilisation of crowds to attend parliament to "defend" Zuma two weeks ago is chilling. Were they there to beat up the EFF MPs?

Those of us who lived through the clashes between the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party in the 1980s and 1990s know that violence starts with loose talk of killing, such as Nqakula's.

It is not necessary and it must stop before things get out of hand.