Why African leaders can't be taken seriously: Part III

Last month, if one can imagine, race relations in South Africa hit a new low.

On April 3rd 2010, Eugene TerreBlanche, the country's leading white supremacist, was murdered by two of his farm workers.  Supporters of his said they would seek vengeance on greater South Africa for his murder and have warned nations not to send their athletes to the upcoming 2010 World Cup Football Games to be held there.

In the context of the murder, Mr. Julius Malema, the controversial leader of the ANC's youth league and potential future leader of the ANC party, attempted to seek short-term political gain by repeating in public an old ANC song; which if taken literally, calls for the killing of Afrikaners.  Since the end of apartheid in 1994, more than 3,000 white farmers are estimated to have been murdered.  South African courts have ruled that the song is an incitement to violence and illegal.

Malema then visited Harare, Zimbabwae, where he linked arms with Robert Mugabe, the country’s incompetent and bigoted dictator, and declared his own demands for nationalizing South Africa's mining industry and confiscating the land of white farmers, just as Mugabe had done.

 

South Africa's problems with this dunce do not end there.  In an interview with International journalists at ANC headquarters in Johannesburg, Malema publicly accusing BBC reporter, Jonah Fisher, of exhibiting "white tendency" then calling him a "bastard", "bloody agent" and "small boy".  The BBC reporter was then told by Malema to leave the press conference.

According to the Guardian UK newspaper, the dispute between Mr. Malema and the reporter began when:

Malema, who has just returned from Zimbabwe, praised Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and poured scorn on the "Mickey Mouse" opposition. He mocked exiles linked to the Movement for Democratic Change, led by Zimbabwe's prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, for using offices in Sandton, a wealthy suburb of Johannesburg.

Current South African President, Jacob Zuma, who I have ridiculed for his corruption and incompetence (here), was forced to publicly rebuke his unstable lieutenant; although in the meekest of terms.  Feckless ANC leaders condemned Zuma for merely saying that leaders must “think before they speak, as their utterances have wider implications for the country.”  Bloomberg news service is reporting,

Malema’s supporters will tell Zuma at an ANC national working committee meeting scheduled for April 19 that he was wrong to reprimand Malema in public... The ANC is divided on the issue and Zuma’s actions will be defended by the party’s military veterans association and the ANC Women’s League president, it said.

What future can South Africa have, when such flamboyantly idiotic and incompetent leaders are posed to seize control of the nation?