Julius Malema, ANC Youth League President, part-time millionaire, Presidential poodle and populist lap-dog, has yet again defied his party bosses. And yet again, they will cough into their expensive shirts and look the other way, saying that Julius is only a young man – and shame – young men say funny things.

Only if they were funny!

This weekend , Malema put his foot into things so badly again I reckon he’ll be spitting out pieces of his Woolworths socks for days. Of course, it won’t bother him. He is Comrade Julius, the one and only.

But to the weekend. Only Julius could proclaim that White Boer journalists were out to get him, that they knew nothing about the struggle, that Black journalists were undermined and that the country should not be ruled by journalists (SIC).

This after President Zuma had said journalists should not be threatened. This  in the light of his press officer, Floyd Shivambu, threatening journalists who had exposed Malema’s profitable government tenders.

Only Julius could proclaim that Sharpeville belonged exclusively to the ANC when Deputy president Kgalema Motlante had stated that history should be shared amongst South Africans, especially in the light of the Sharpeville protest – in which over 60 people died – having historically been a PAC (and not ANC) initiative.

Little Comrade Julius, you who weren’t even in diapers when the anti-apartheid struggle was being fought in the steets of your township, here are some words of advice (which I doubt you will heed) but which I think are thoroughly illustrative of your state of mind.

A famous scholar (you won’t be able to pronounce his name) once said:

“Fight your tongue, brother.  The tongue is quick to kill a man. The tongue is the posting of a heart. It shows a man (like yourself)  his intellect…”

And thereby, Comrade Julius,  hangs the real tale. I will fight for your rights under the umbrella of freedom of speech to make a fool of yourself in public, but I think that the time is ripe for you to ship out or shut up. South Africa has far more serious issues to deal with than your fulminating hate speech and boorish manners.

SpeakZA – Bloggers For a Free Press

Last week, shocking revelations concerning the activities of the ANC Youth League spokesperson Nyiko Floyd Shivambu came to the fore. According to a letter published in various news outlets, a complaint was laid by 19 political journalists with the Secretary General of the ANC, against Shivambu. This complaint letter detailed attempts by Shivambu to leak a dossier to certain journalists, purporting to expose the money laundering practices of Dumisani Lubisi, a journalist at the City Press. The letter also detailed the intimidation that followed when these journalists refused to publish these revelations.

We condemn in the strongest possible terms the reprisals against journalists by Shivambu. His actions constitute a blatant attack on media freedom and a grave infringement on Constitutional rights. It is a disturbing step towards dictatorial rule in South Africa.

We call on the ANC and the ANC Youth League to distance themselves from the actions of Shivambu. The press have, time and again, been a vital democratic safeguard by exposing the actions of individuals who have abused their positions of power for personal and political gain.

The press have played a vital role in the liberation struggle, operating under difficult and often dangerous conditions to document some of the most crucial moments in the struggle against apartheid. It is therefore distressing to note that certain people within the ruling party are willing to maliciously target journalists by invading their privacy and threatening their colleagues in a bid to silence them in their legitimate work.

We also note the breathtaking hubris displayed by Shivambu and the ANC Youth League President Julius Malema in their response to the letter of complaint. Shivambu and Malema clearly have no respect for the press and the rights afforded to the press by the Constitution of South Africa. Such a response serves only to reinforce the position that the motive for leaking the so-called dossier was not a legitimate concern, but a contumelious effort to intimidate and bully a journalist who had exposed embarrassing information about the Youth League President.

We urge the ANC as a whole to reaffirm its commitment to press freedom and other Constitutional rights we enjoy as a country.