LETTER TO JULIUS MALEMA

The Sunday Mail

Exchanging notes with Cde Malema

By Munyaradzi Huni
REVOLUTIONARY greetings to Comrade Julius Malema! Welcome to Zimbabwe, the land of The Land and the land of The Struggle. Hope the comrades who have been with you since your arrival last Friday have been good hosts because hospitality is the pride of Zimbabwe.
Now, Cde Malema, I hear you have been causing quite some discomfort down in South Africa with some unrepentant whites now even calling for your head. I hear they are now calling you a “tyrant in the making”.
Recently, I read an article on BBC News by Andrew Harding that said you want to turn “this bountiful country into yet another Zimbabwe”. I can see that the white-controlled South African media is finding you too hot to handle. Well, Cde Malema, all this name-calling, all these threats and all the anti-Malema media campaigns may surprise many in South Africa, but here in Zimbabwe we have seen it all before and, as the fellow comrades may have told you already, we don’t lose sleep over the imperialists’ racial mind games.
I liked it when you told that Communist Party official, Jeremy Cronin, that “we do not need the permission of white political messiahs to think”. That’s the true spirit, dear Comrade. Don’t beat about the bush when dealing with unrepentant racists.
President Mugabe has been called all sorts of names, the imperialists have tried to demean the country’s liberation struggle, puppet movements have been planted in our politics, they have and are still trying to reverse the historic and irreversible land reform programme and if you listen to the imperialists, you will be forgiven for thinking that Zimbabwe collapsed a long time ago.
We have had our problems and challenges, but Zimbabwe still stands proud on the radar and soon shall be the envy of many on the African continent and beyond. Comrade Malema, as the leader of the ANC Youth League, I know there is nothing I can tell you about the living conditions of blacks and whites in South Africa.
I know that you know that the lives of the majority of blacks in South Africa have not improved much since your country attained multi-party democracy in 1994. I won’t lecture you about black empowerment because I know that when you talk about nationalisation, you want blacks in your country to have their deserved share of the cake.
And I know that during your meetings with the Minister of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment, Cde Saviour Kasukuwere, and other comrades in Zanu-PF you have been told quite a lot about the need to empower the black majority.
However, there are worrying developments that took place in your country recently that I think I need to bring to your attention. From the surface, the incidents appear unrelated when, in fact, they are very much related. First, the Pretoria High Court made a ruling last month upholding a Sadc Tribunal judgment ordering Zimbabwe to compensate white farmers for land acquired for resettlement. After that ruling by the High Court, we saw representatives of some group calling itself Afriforum trying to attach Zimbabwe Government property in South Africa. Of course, as Zimbabweans we knew that Afriforum was just grandstanding to secure a few dollars from their donors and, thank God, the South African government has now appealed against the High Court ruling.
The second development was another judgment by the SA courts that tried to stop you from singing that inspiring anti-apartheid song with the words “Ayesab’ amagwala/Dubul’ iBhunu” (The cowards are afraid/Kill the Boer”. Fortunately, the ANC, through its secretary-general, Cde Gwede Mantashe, was quick to set the record straight, saying: “These songs cannot be regarded as hate speech or unconstitutional. Any judgment that describes them as such is impractical and unimplementable.”
Cde Mantashe went on to say the song was only a means of ensuring that SA history was remembered and was not meant as an act to incite violence against whites. While these two rulings by the SA courts clearly show a naked attempt to destroy the struggle that brought independence to your country, they also tell a sad story about the judiciary in your country. It was not by coincidence that of all the countries in Sadc, Afriforum chose the SA courts to have the Sadc Tribunal ruling effected. Afriforum knew that it has sympathisers in the judicial system in your country and so they exploited that.
As for the “Kill the Boer” judgment, the court clearly showed that it still has burning issues with the struggle that brought your independence. Now, if the unrepentant former Rhodies that make up Afriforum still have sympathisers in your judiciary and if the bench in your country tries to downplay the struggle for your independence, then you have a big problem on your hands.
Let me take you back to Zimbabwe in 2000 when the country’s land reform programme was still in its infancy. As you know, the programme was spearheaded by peasants and war veterans and, during that time, the country’s Supreme Court looked like “an English court on Zimbabwean soil”. While presiding over a High Court circuit in Mutare in 2000, Justice Smith referred to war veterans as the “so-called war veterans”, and all hell broke loose.
The then Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Cde Patrick Chinamasa, hit back not only at Justice Smith but the entire judiciary at that time.
He said: “How can personnel so high up in the pecking order of a regime grounded in a racist grundnorm faithfully serve a democratic State?
“Reference is made to Mr Justice Blackie, who was a Member of Parliament for the Rhodesia Front from 1975, Mr Justice George Smith, who served as Cabinet secretary for the Ian Douglas Smith government, the present Chief Justice Gubbay, who was appointed to the bench by the Smith government in 1977, Mr Justice Adam, who, while unsoiled by the UDI years, somehow turned up at the Lancaster House Constitutional Conference as a member of the Smith legal team and delegation, and Mr Justice Ebrahim, who was state counsel in the Director of Public Prosecutions Department under the Smith regime at a time when Coloured people were not accepted into the public service . . .
“It was clear the judge could not hide his inner feelings of distaste against a class of our citizens who, but for their efforts and sacrifices, Zimbabwe as we know it today as a country of equal opportunity for all citizens, would not exist.” At that time it was taboo to criticise the country’s judiciary. The judiciary was untouchable and so when Cde Chinamasa attacked the system, the imperialists unleashed their media and the minister was torn to pieces.
He, however, was not deterred. Instead, in January 2001, as the tussle between the executive arm of Government and the judiciary continued, he received support from an unlikely source. The then Judge President Justice Chidyausiku attacked the then Chief Justice Gubbay for starting the standoff with the executive by assuring commercial white farmers that they would win if they sued the Government over the land issue.
As the fight continued, Cde Chinamasa became even more robust. In January 2001, he said: “The present composition of the judiciary reflects that the country is in a semi-colonial state, half-free, half-enslaved.
“A visitor to our country would be excused for observing, as they often do, that if one came to the country, chaperoned to a sitting of the Supreme Court and made to leave immediately, one would by that fact alone conclude that he has been to a European and not African country. It is like we have an English court on Zimbabwean soil.”
Eventually, there were reforms in the judiciary in Zimbabwe and the Rhodies who are thronging the South African courts know that here they don’t get any favours. We now have an independent judiciary that reflects and respects our history as a country, but the reforms were not a walk in the park.
I am glad that during your address at the rally yesterday, you mentioned that the judiciary in SA is still being controlled by whites. As you continue your fight for the total emancipation of the blacks in South Africa, as you continue the fight for the empowerment of the majority and as you will fight for blacks to have their share of the cake in the distribution of resources, you should be aware that the imperialists will use all tactics to derail the process.
First, they will try to tarnish your image (I hear they have made all sorts of accusations regarding your lifestyle). If that fails, they will try to tarnish the image of the ANC (I hear they are accusing the ANC of being too corrupt). If that fails they will sponsor all sorts of puppets, including NGOs and political parties, and, if that fails, they will use their friends in government institutions to fight the government.
In Zimbabwe’s case, they went to the extent of trying to use regional and international bodies like Sadc and the UN respectively. Of course, as you know all, their efforts have been in vain.
Comrade Malema, you have been tough in your talk like you did recently when you attacked the Democratic Alliance’s youth wing, saying: “I only debate with serious political youth formations, not a group of racist Helen Zille’s garden boys.”
This is the kind of talk that will earn you a lot of enemies, but let them not scare you. We also have the imperialists’ garden boys in our midst, but they know that Zimbabwe is FOREVER FREE.
Long live the revolution! Long live the camaraderie between Zimbabwe and South Africa!
Long live the empowerment of the black majority! Enjoy your stay in Zimbabwe, dear Comrade.