In last week’s column, I recalled that “agrarian reform”, as advocated by Julius Malema, evoked a phrase associated with Cambodia’s murderous tyrant, Pol Pot. The comments raised a pertinent question. Was I saying Malema is a genocidal maniac? If not, would this change anything? Do the people even want land.
The parallel drawn last week between Julius Malema and Pol Pot is very powerful if one supposes that all so-called agrarian reform leads to genocide. It isn’t much less powerful if it does so only sometimes.
But what if it doesn’t? Is Malema fighting for something South Africans actually want?
Let’s start with his intent. Assuming it is benign may be hard, given his well-documented tendency to flaunt his power and wealth. The phalanx of heavily-armed bodyguards surrounding the bearer of the Breitling watch led one newspaper to ask with whom he is at war. Another noted his unsubtle threat to the white Afrikaner organisation that brought charges of hate speech against him over the song “Shoot the Boer”. He reportedly told them they would end up like the Inkatha Freedom Party marchers who were massacred in 1994 outside Shell House, as Luthuli House, the ANC headquarters was known then.
