In which I side with the EFF

02 July 2014 - 13:05 By Bruce Gorton
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EFF president Julius Malema. File photo.
EFF president Julius Malema. File photo.
Image: SIMPHIWE NKWALI and WALDO SWIEGERS

I don’t much like the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), for obvious reasons.

I think their policies are stupid at best, downright damaging at worst, and their leader’s chief achievements involve bankrupting the ANC Youth League.

In real terms the party is our own version of Britain’s BNP or Greece’s Golden Dawn, a hate-group whose main political appeal is its ability to use rage to short-circuit the thinking of its followers.

That said – yesterday’s performance in the Gauteng Legislature has me siding with the EFF on something, much as I hate it.

The fact of the matter is that the whole dress code issue is basically a handy way of avoiding dealing with what the EFF has to say.

I have never been a fan of dress codes, as many of my co-workers can attest, and this is a case which illustrates why.

The EFF was elected to say certain things in government; it was elected to be the voice of the people who voted for it.

When it was thrown out of parliament for saying the ANC killed workers at Marikana – that is precisely what they were elected to say.

When it was thrown out of the legislature for wearing uniforms that said they wouldn’t retract – that is precisely what they were elected to say.

The fact that it might have been unparliamentary? Well parliamentary behaviour has us paying R200 million to upgrade our president’s house.

And it isn’t any less parliamentary than anything little miss “My daddy was a big cheese in the struggle so I get to screw up every portfolio I’m assigned to with no consequences” Lindiwe Sisulu says every time she opens her mouth.

Accusing Maimane of being a “hired native” to be quite frank about it is unparliamentary racist bullshit, and Sisulu wasn’t told to retract.

Nor was Stone Sizani when he pulled similar rhetoric calling Maimane the DA's "Pin-up boy" – yet Malema pointing out that if the ANC can take credit for the police’s successes, then they can also get credit for disasters like the Marikana massacre gets him kicked out of parliament.

Government has to actually address that accusation, it can’t just silence it. All the government has done thus far is dismiss the issue – but it is one of the core issues that allowed the EFF to rise in the first place.

It needs dealing with because each time the EFF is thrown out of a legislature or parliament meeting for bringing it up, the EFF’s support will grow.

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