In years gone by, Julius Malema’s physical disposition has tended to work against him, nowhere more so than in his face.
Round and plump, it cut a stark contrast with his rhetoric, typically fused with threatening menace. But his eyes have never changed; two small nuclear reactors, within which a great anger resides. He has always spoken first with his eyes.
Today, gaunt and thin, his face has come to complement rather than contradict them. And when the switch trips, as it often does, that anger now irradiates his every feature. He cuts a far more ominous presence.
The switch tripped in 2010. “Don’t come here with that white tendency”, Malema said, as he turned viciously on a BBC journalist, before calling on security to remove him. “Go out, go out, bastard. You bloody agent”. Watch the video. It’s the eyes that get you.
Death and violence have always been close to Malema. Many have chosen to overlook or downplay the relationship between the two, enamoured of the novelty of his character.
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