By Smaktakula
Making South Africa’s Jacob Zuma seem statesmanlike is no small feat. Although the one-party nation’s populist president and leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) is by all appearances an affable fellow, Zuma has repeatedly demonstrated behavior unbecoming the head of the nation which, particularly in light of Egypt’s recent woes, remains a premier economic power in Africa. In one display of poor judgement, Zuma suggested that he was not at risk for HIV despite having unprotected sex with a woman he knew to be infected, because he took a post-coital shower. Despite this, the young firebrand whom Zuma himself tagged to be South Africa’s future tyrant imbues the current president with an air of Dalai Lama-like gravitas by comparison.
Cherubic hatemonger Julius Malema has proven a polarizing figure in South African politics. As president of the ANC Youth League since 2008, Malema has courted a number of controversies during his tenure in office, among them vociferous and ad hominem denunciations of various ‘enemies,’ attempts to muzzle the press–including threats to shut down Twitter, and a conviction for hate speech. Just thirty years old, the inarticulate race-baiter was nine years old when Nelson Mandela was freed and Apartheid abolished, returning national rule to the black majority. Despite living most of his life in a black-governed South Africa, Malema still manages to blame white people for most of his country’s ills. He doesn’t care for Asians, either.
As an admirer of Zimbabwe’s Robert ‘ChocoFührer’ Mugabe, Malema espouses taking the means of production out of the hands of a wealthy elite and redistributing it to his more deserving cronies. These policies have proved nothing short of transformational for Zimbabwe; in just a few short years the aging Afro-fascist has managed to oust most of the nation’s white farmers, erasing not only their influence, but also quite coincidentally, turning what was not so long ago one of Africa’s premier nations into tomorrow’s All-Star Charity Benefit Concert.
In South Africa, the fall of Apartheid and the ensuing years of stability, peace and a relatively high living standard have made the nation unique among its neighbors. However, if anyone can undo this damage and return South Africa to the ranks of the continent’s despotic strong-man regimes, it’s Black Julius.