Julius Malema has never met a tyrant he didn’t like, then disliked, and then liked again, but this week SA’s answer to Marjorie Taylor Greene humped the leg of violent repression with such fervour it almost looked like true love.
On Wednesday, at more or less the same time that Vladimir Putin was announcing a crackdown on all “traitors” in Russia — including, as seen on viral videos, people who hold up blank placards in public — Malema was leading a small delegation to the Russian embassy in Tshwane to get the really real, totally true inside story about the invasion of Ukraine.
Photos showed them posing in front of a painting of a church (Putin might be bombing civilians hiding in theatres, but he still lurves Baby Jesus) before they emerged with the sort of shy smiles you might wear after you’ve had some sweaty Stalinism whispered in your ear, been propaganda’d senseless, then patted on the bum and given bus fare home.
It looked like true love. But of course it wasn’t, because the EFF doesn’t operate from a place of political conviction.
Some people on Twitter wondered why the delegation hadn’t worn the EFF’s traditional red overalls, which is weird because everyone knows you don’t wear Communist red to a meeting with servants of a Christian nationalist state. Besides, I appreciate their honesty. For once, Malema and Floyd Shivambu actually dressed as what they are: rich businessmen on the make, coining it from their ongoing Ponzi scheme.
The visit seems to have been a massive success, at least for Russia. Malema tweeted that he had received “first-hand information … from the embassy, not from neo-Nazi propagandists”, presumably because the ambassador’s fax machine was broken and he wasn’t getting the latest updates from Moscow.
Not to be outdone, the EFF brains trust banged out a press release, describing China (where democracy is illegal) and India (currently flirting with fascism) as “progressive”, while also referring to something called “the United Socialist Soviet Republics”, which I assume is what the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is called in the universe where the EFF lives.
As I said, it looked like true love. But of course it wasn’t, because the EFF doesn’t operate from a place of political conviction. Its only unshakable belief is that its leaders should keep getting richer, and all its policies and rhetoric are focused on simply keeping them in parliament for as many years as possible, regardless of whether they actually do anything or not.
A few years ago the EFF’s leaders still believed that to get re-elected they needed to pretend to have an ideological core and perform theatrical interventions based on those fake beliefs.
Since then, however, they’ve learnt that they really don’t need a position on anything. All that matters is delivering an endless drip feed of dopamine hits to their supporters, and the cheapest and easiest way of doing that is by angering white people, ANC moderates and journalists.
This week they’re supporting fascist imperialism. Next week they’ll brand as racist anyone who accuses them of cosying up to a war criminal. And so it goes.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Ka-ching. Ka-ching. Ka-ching.
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