The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have once again clashed with the broader media in South Africa.
Julius Malema, the self-styled ‘Commander-in-Chief’ of South Africa’s third biggest political party, tweeted earlier this week that he believed the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) was planning on boycotting covering the EFF. ‘Please go ahead but be prepared for the consequences. Don’t be cry-babies when we respond with the same energy,’ the tweet read in part.
This comes after Malema had told members of the EFF ‘Student Command’ that they were under no obligation to interact with eNCA journalists who were covering the latest round of protests around university fees.
But this is only the latest in a number of salvos that Malema and the EFF fired at South Africa’s Fourth Estate.
Jonah Fisher
In one of Julius Malema’s earliest (and still one of his best-known) attacks on journalists, he demanded that a BBC journalist, Jonah Fisher, leave a press conference in April 2010. Malema was still at the time the head of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) and took umbrage when Fisher accused him of hypocrisy. Malema, who had recently returned from Zimbabwe, was speaking about that country’s opposition and he criticized them for having offices in Sandton, Johannesburg. Fisher pointed out that Malema lived in Sandton. Malema responded by telling Fisher to ‘behave’, resulting in Fisher laughing. Malema responded by saying: ‘If you’re not going to behave, you’re [sic] going to call security to take you out. This is not a newsroom, this is a revolutionary house and you don’t come here with that tendency.
‘Don’t come here with that white tendency. Not here. You can do it somewhere else. Not here. If you’ve got a tendency of undermining blacks, even where you work, you are in the wrong place. Here you are in the wrong place.’
Fisher told Malema this was ‘rubbish’ resulting in Malema calling him a ‘small boy’. As Fisher was leaving, Malema called him a ‘bastard’ and a ‘bloody agent’.
Adriaan Basson
In 2018 Adriaan Basson, the editor of News24, opened a case of intimidation on Twitter against an EFF supporter. This person had told Basson on the social media site that he would like to kill ‘white animals’ and people like Basson. A police case was opened by Basson, who took to Twitter to ask the EFF and Malema whether they would condemn the threat. Malema tweeted ‘We won’t do it’ and when asked for clarity on what ‘we’ wouldn’t do, Malema tweeted ‘Condemnation’.
Malema had also called Basson a ‘racist thing’ and a ‘boy’ on Twitter in 2018.
Karima Brown
In 2019 Karima Brown, who recently passed away from Covid-19, mistakenly sent a message to an EFF WhatsApp group, which she had meant to send to a group of colleagues. In it she had said: ‘Watch out for the elders if they all male and who appointed them. So ask the so what question,’ Malema took a screenshot of the message, which included Brown’s cellphone number, and posted it on his Twitter account, which has followers in the millions. Brown was bombarded with messages, including death and rape threats. Brown subsequently took Malema to court. Malema apologised and deleted the offending tweet.
For media freedom (but not for everyone)
In December 2019, speaking at his party’s ‘National People’s Assembly’, Malema said the EFF supported media freedom but did not support publications which had agendas to ‘destroy’ the organisation. He also said that most publications were ‘hungry dogs of factions of the ruling party and domestic and global capitalist institutions.’ It wouldn’t be a Malema address if there wasn’t some additional race baiting and he did not disappoint. He said that the EFF supported the independence of the media and that the country needed seasoned and well-trained journalists but not those whose aim was to ‘impress their white bosses’.
A number of publications were banned from covering the event, held in Johannesburg, including the Daily Maverick and Rapport. News24 and eNCA also declined to cover the Assembly in solidarity with their barred colleagues.
This is a small sample of the times when Malema has expressed his outright disdain for journalists and the press.
And let’s not forget that Malema’s lieutenants have not been averse to attacking journalists. The deputy leader of the EFF, Floyd Shivambu, when he was still Malema’s sidekick in the ANCYL, called journalist Carien du Plessis, a ‘white bitch’. More recently, in 2018, he grabbed a white journalist, Adrian de Kock, by the throat, after De Kock had tried to photograph Shivambu in the parliamentary precinct.
Last year, Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, was criticised after he tried to brush off the shoving of a journalist, Nobesuthu Hejana, by EFF members. Hejana was covering an EFF protest outside Clicks, after the chain had released a ‘racist’ advert. EFF members pushed and shoved Hejana and her colleagues, trying to prevent them from filming the protest. Ndlozi tweeted that this was ‘merely touching’ and not harassment as the touching had to be ‘violent, invasive, or harmful to become harassment’.
But it wasn’t always like this. A few years ago Malema was the darling of much of the South African press, even though his disdain of the media has always been clear. If it wasn’t Richard Poplak writing sycophantic profiles of Malema it was Ferial Haffajee telling us about Malema, the agricultural entrepreneur.
The EFF and Julius Malema are clear and present dangers to democracy, and to the hope that South Africa can become a prosperous country, where all can live with dignity and hope for the future.
It is vital that the media continues to report on Malema and the EFF and show them for the authoritarian and racist movement that they are. Better late than never, as the saying goes.
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