On a point of order, comrade

Fred Khumalo: There was a time, not so long ago, when it was considered highly irresponsible of a young black South African man, especially from an urban area, not to have a grasp of political history and theory.

You didn't have to swallow Das Kapital whole and regurgitate it on demand, but you at least had to know some phrases and themes penned by Karl Marx. You had to show some familiarity with Lenin and Frantz Fanon. You had to know how your land was taken away from your ancestors, and who led the charge.

Indeed, a young man coming of age in the '70s and '80s with no political knowledge or interest was regarded with suspicion: he was either an apartheid agent, or an out-of-touch, intellectually -challenged mangaroola or kalakoen (country bumpkin).

Like political suss, some knowledge of soccer was also obligatory - either at a practical level as a player, or at a theoretical level as an observer and a commentator. That's why every second black man my age "can write a book" about soccer (For some reason the kalakoens from the Eastern Cape chose rugby and boxing over soccer - but we shall skin that cat some other day).

The point is: a young black man, as early as his teens, had to know a bit about politics and a bit about soccer in order to be able to get by, to be considered "with it".

Back in the day books and pamphlets on political theory were smuggled from house to house, from school to school, so that the youngsters could rhabula, as the process of imbibing political education was called.

Literally, rhabula means to drink a potent elixir that will make you stronger, or will heal you, or nourish you. The noun is umrhabulo.

Through these pamphlets and books, sometimes accompanied by underground meetings and workshops, you learned the histories of the various liberation movements. At these workshops you also learned the procedures of a political meeting.

The intriguing thing was that these workshops were held in English, even though all those gathered at the venue spoke the same language: Zulu, or Xhosa, or Sotho and so on. The queen's tongue was a third or fourth language to many of us.

Because most of us struggled with English, we kept quiet throughout the meetings. But we did learn some potent little phrases.

When a comrade that you did not particularly like was on the floor, mid-stride in his oration, you just had to raise your hand, get up from your seat and blurt: "Through the chair, the comrade is out of order ..."

Pandemonium would break out and your adversary would be distracted from his declamations. Wasn't that the point of a good meeting - to successfully distract your enemy?

There were other chestnuts: "On a point of exigency, comrade! The comrade is undermining the intelligence of the grassroots!" Ah, the girls, if they were in the audience, got misty-eyed over those big words.

I used to wonder why people wasted time talking about grassroots when most townships had no grass - just endless expanses of dusty terrain. Until I learned that I was part of the grassroots. Ah, the magic of the English language.

But some serious lessons were also learned. You learned about the heroes of our struggles: from Marcus Garvey to Kwame Nkrumah; from Jomo Kenyatta to Haille Sellasie; from Robert Sobukwe to Oliver Tambo; from Duma Nokwe to Steve Biko.

Some great leaders who now hold responsible positions both in the public and private sector cut their political teeth in these sessions of umrhabulo.

It was against this background that the news that Julius Malema, the president of the most influential constituency in the tripartite alliance, had not imbibed his obligatory cup of umrhabulo, was greeted with a mixture of shock, disappointment and, ultimately, relief.

Many were disappointed that the ruling party leadership had let its guard down to the extent that it was allowing a loud-mouth mangaroola to contribute in the long-running struggle to undermine the legacies of Duma Nokwe, Anton Lembede and Lulu Johnson, all of whom led the youth before him.

There was, however, relief that, at last, the ruling party had come to its senses by issuing a decree that Malema should go for political education.

But this latter sense of relief is flawed. It is flawed because it assumes that Malema is teachable.

I think his high school teacher in woodwork studies should be tracked down and his opinion on this matter canvassed. Can he who failed to grasp the intricacies of woodwork be expected to navigate the labyrinth that is dialectical materialism?

I can already picture Juju Man crossing swords with his political education teacher, Tony Yengeni: "But comrade Tony, don't be tjatjarag now. Just because Luthuli House said you must give me some political education does not mean you must look down upon me by throwing these big terminologies at me. What is this dialectical mate ... this dialectical whatever you're gaaning on about? Dialect ... dialect ... where I come from we don't speak a dialect. We speak a real, fully fledged language. We speak sePedi, not some dialect. You people from the Eastern Cape and KZN are always undermining those of us who are from the northren (sic) parts of this country. Let's stop this dialectal nonsense of yours. Now teach me about comrade Lenin and the revolution."

Tony, rubbing his hands gleefully: "Ah, did you have time to look at those photocopies on comrade Lenin's life and work? Yes! What lessons did you learn from his writings?"

"I didn't learn anything! You are supposed to teach me. All that I remember from the bits of writing that you gave me was that comrade Lenin kept asking: 'What is to be done, what is to be done ...'"

"Exactly, the point, comrade Julius. Exactly the point. That is a rhetorical question ..."

"Ah, there you go again comrade. Rheto ... whatever. Why do you have to use these big words?"

"A rhetorical question means that the speaker does not expect an answer to the question ..."

"Then why ask the question in the first place? We don't do that in sePedi. You know, when I saw the question, I said to myself: okay, comrade Lenin, what is to be done? What is to be done is to kill the bloody agents. To get rid of the counter-revolutionaries, the bastards ..."

Moving swiftly on, Yengeni looks through his tutorial material and stumbles upon a copy of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. He fondly remembers that as a young man he was told to read the book, not for its literary prowess but for its political message: that the white settlers used religion and other modern niceties to lull the Africans into complacency.

But Yengeni soon decides that trying to convey this message to Malema would be like hitting one's head against a huge block of wood. The young man wouldn't recognise Achebe even if he were to appear as a genie from a bottle of Moët et Chandon.

You see, the assumption that Malema can imbibe any political education is based on the shaky premise that he wants to learn. To give the proverbial horse-to-water narrative a contemporary urban spin: you can take a hungry mongrel from the township to an upturned dustbin, but you will never force it to partake of the malodorous contents of the bin. 'Nuff said.