Exclusive: Mr Julius Malema’s official response to media attacks…

It’s happened! Who knew this blog had such influence, such power? Last week I suggested that Julius Malema, president of the ANC Youth League, might be well served by appointing a public relations person to improve his image in the media. And he has! He has appointed Hugh Mangazi, former Editor of The Limpopo Larynx and massage therapist to the Springbok netball squad, to this post and, what’s more, Mr Malema has insisted that his press releases be fed to the world’s media through this humble but reputably “SA-positive” blog.

I am thus hugely honoured to publish Mr Malema’s first official press release, written by Mr Mangazi, in the wake of the media feeding frenzy directed at Mr Malema since the unfortunate fracas witnessed at Luthuli House. the headquarters of the African National Congress, in Johannesburg yesterday:


From the desk of Mr Hugh Mangazi, official public relations officer for Mr Julius Malema, president of the African National Congress Youth League. For immediate release on April 9, 2010:

“I am not amused by the way the media have responded to the fact that I had to have that BBC journalist removed from my press briefing at Luthuli House yesterday.

Like most white journalists, and especially the ones from Britain with their imperialist agenda, he clearly came to cause trouble with me. And he had the insolence and colonial arrogance to think that he could come to my place, the home of the ANC steeped in the proud tradition of the struggle, and carry out his mischief. He is just a small boy from Britain, one of those pimply whites who still keeps a train set under his bed.

But this British boy agent comes here and tells me I’m talking “rubbish”. Why should I tolerate this? Did I go to 10 Downing Street and tell Gordon Brown in his home that what he is saying is rubbish? Did I go to 10 Downing Street to ask Gordon Brown where he lives? No. I didn’t. Because I don’t care where he lives… as long as he doesn’t try to steal my people’s land in Africa and grow rhubarb on it and pay my people R20 a week to grow it. And as long as he doesn’t let that Victoria Barkham with no bum come here with her right-wing agent husband to our World Cup and colonise our TV news.

This boy from the BBC, an agent for imperialism and the whites who occupied Zimbabwe and tried to run South Africa… who had the cheek to say I live in Sandton… why did he come to my press conference to do that? Why does he want to know where I live? Does he want work as my garden boy? I’m sure he stays in a nice house in Windsor, or wherever white people like to live when they’re at home, and has a Sony Playstation 4 and his own collection of toy Ferraris… so why does he come here and insult me? No, he had to go. Why didn’t all the media follow him out? Because they need me, they feed off me, they eat up my words. I don’t need them. That BBC boy can work in my garden, if he behaves himself and plants my mielies in a straight row and listens to me in my home. Then I will even give him lunch. He can have samp and rice. And I’ll even pay him his wages on time.

I live in Sandton because I can. I’m not a garden boy. I am a leader. My people want me to live where I like. Because I am an inspiration to them and show them what they can become. The media dig around in my life because I have money to buy a big car and wear good clothes. They think I must ride a bicycle to work in those white shorts with the red piping around the legs like a garden boy. They want to know where I got the money from. They think I am corrupt. They don’t understand how a black man can have these things while they drive around their suburbs in big cars and wear a Rolex. I can do what I like in my country. This is my home, not theirs. I am not their garden boy.

Look at this skeleton that has been dug up in Maropeng. A white boy dug it up. The whites are always digging around in Africa for what they can find. These are the bones of my ancestors. African people. My people. These bones could be my relatives but white people have dug them up… do they want to take my dead family back to London? They must dig around in their own backyard and see what they can find. Maybe they’ll find their Churchill and a few dead kings and queens there. If they want to dig here, they can find their colonial emperor Cyril Rhodes and take him home. He was the worst white gold-digger of them all.

These colonialists have taken enough from Africa. They must leave us alone. A white boy found our bones because he has nothing better to do than dig around in Africa, looking for what does not belong to him. Like that BBC agent yesterday. Why wasn’t it a black boy who dug up this skeleton? Because he has to go to school so that he can get a proper job, not digging around in a white man’s backyard. I have had enough of these whites who come and dig up Africa and make trouble. And I will not apologise for sending that BBC agent home with a big fly in his ear.

No, my friends. My comrades. My fellow Louie Vittons. We must stand up and say enough is enough.  As the imperialists’ own William Shakingspear said: “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock. The meat it feeds on.”

As the saying goes… “Only In South Africa!”

I’ve had a few mails from foreign viewers of this blog which ask those unanswerable questions: “What’s Umdloti like? What’s South Africa like?”

I try my best but, as locals well know, it’s like no other. That’s Umdloti and South Africa. Uniqueness, babies. How does one give somebody who’s never visited a flavour of South Africa? What’s the essence of South Africanness?

Well, it’s not contained in the following video. Or is it? Look. I don’t know anybody who does this but it certainly plays into the “Madam and Eve” comic strip stereotype of how a Sandton housewife might walk her dog… or, rather, getting “Eve” to do it for her.

OK. Here’s the thing. Non-South Africans might find even the suggestion that this may happen totally reprehensible. We South Africans will simply find it hilarious. Because, no, we don’t know anybody who would do this, do we? No, we don’t. Not anymore. That’s why we find it chuffing funny. So let’s not intellectualise it. Let’s just lag (laugh) our broekies (underwear) wet!

What? Oh, OK. Go on, change those broekies then. Because I have more. And, in the next vid, the umhlungu (white man) had every reason to change his underwear after this enjoyable (for us) exchange with a South African institution. No, not one of our notorious banks. Not the police. Not even a car hijacker. A car guard. Those guys who look after cars for a few rand (in this case, five bucks) because of a national perception that, even if you pop into the corner shop for two minutes to buy a jar of Marmite or bag of biltong, your bakkie or Beemer will be on its way to a township. This car guard is sommer priceless…

And this is three guys singing a South African song in a car. Simple as that.

Nice. Sung with passion. South Africanness.

And then, instead of throwing into this mix yet another vid which shows off the probably unparalleled scenic splendour of our jawdroppingly diverse and sumptuously beautiful country, I thought you might enjoy this…

Classicness. Broekiechangingness. The truth. I see this happening every day at Java Cafe on Umdloti’s seafront. But, hey, you had better come and see for yourself. Leave any preconceptions at home but do remember to pack your sense of humour. You’ll need it. In fact, the customs okes will probably ask you to produce it before stamping your passport!