TOM EATON | Excuse my French but what the EFF is Julius playing at?

This week the EFF reminded us about the fundamental problem with selling out your high moral ground for a belly rub from tyrants: you look very, very silly trying to lecture anyone on genuine issues.

On Wednesday, the Five-Percenters marched on the French embassy in Pretoria, demanding an immediate end to all colonial and neocolonial activities in Africa by the French government.

For a group that has realised it is nowhere near power, and will have to fill the next many years with political theatre and hollow grandstanding, it made a lot more sense than its usual approach of bullying shop assistants.

France does, in fact, have some fairly murky relationships with certain African countries, and this week’s piece in the New York Times, reminding readers of France’s monstrous and punitive looting of Haiti, will have given fresh momentum to those who believe that reparations are long overdue.

All of this was why, the EFF explained in a typically eccentric memorandum, it was “here, in-front [sic] of the THE [sic] embassy of slave traders, colonialists, warmongers and imperialists, to make the following demands”.

Now, as I say, if these demands had been served up by a group of genuine anti-imperialists who still bestrode the higher moral ground, they might have had a kind of moral coherence about them.

For those outside the cult, however, the spectacle of the EFF protesting French colonialism while supporting Russian colonialism is as absurd as the party’s claims that it cares about Africa.

Just two months ago, however, the EFF stood “in-front” [sic] of another embassy of colonialists, warmongers and imperialists, and all they demanded on that occasion was a photo opportunity with the Russian ambassador.

Of course, the EFF, like the ANC, will never admit that it has allied itself with a war of colonial oppression. It certainly won’t admit that, by being an apologist for the catastrophic disruption of Ukraine’s grain exports, it is actively working towards the outbreak of famine in Africa.

For those outside the cult, however, the spectacle of the EFF protesting French colonialism while supporting Russian colonialism is as absurd as the party’s claims that it cares about Africa.

With a final clownish flourish, the EFF warned France that it has just “14 working days” days to act on its demands (because even revolutionaries respect weekends) or else it will ... have a meeting!

I’m not even really joking. Its actual threat was that it would “outline a clear and practical programme on how we will undermine and counter French’s [sic] continued colonisation of the African continent”. In other words, if those beastly Frenchies don’t pull out now, they’re going to get a PDF in their email.

At the best of times this would be an unusually toothless threat, but when seen in the context of the EFF’s history of handing out hollow ultimatums, it’s essentially an official invitation to France to do absolutely nothing. After all, these are the same chest-thumpers who gave the Reserve Bank, the Chamber of Mines and the JSE 30 days to hand over the economy to the masses in 2015; the same ones who, just last year, told the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority that it had seven days to approve Chinese and Russian Covid-19 vaccines. And here we are.

No, the EFF should stick to doing what it does best: insulting the ANC, denouncing the owners of wine estates while drinking their wine, and kissing the arses of Russian imperialists. Leave the tough talk to people who can actually deliver. Like, oh, I don’t know, Ukrainian drone operators?