By BO Staff writer

At the Manifesto Launch Rally, which took place during the day in the Orlando Stadium on 30 April 2016, EFF leaders were dressed in their red overalls. They spoke socialism and revolution to desperate, hungry, landless blacks in their thousands. However during the night, while they were away from the black masses, the very same leaders stepped out of their overalls and dressed up like big capitalists and agents of Imperialism in tuxedos. The EFF is everything to everybody. When they are in front of whites they assure them that their land is safe, it won’t be taken. They tell whites that EFF only wants “un-used land”. When they are with the landless they say that the land shall be taken from whites without paying for it.

Malcolm X has long ago warned that, “(a) man who stands for nothing will fall for anything”. When EFF first entered parliament fully togged out with workers gear, this sent a strong signal that the party represents the aspirations of workers. To this end we witnessed how EFF MPLs even invaded the Gauteng Legislature announcing their intention to continue dressing in workers clothes and flying the workers colors. Its therefore puzzling that the EFF leadership are now happy to be in tuxedos and to this end claim that the change in dress code is suggestive of being “an all-rounder”. Its a lie. In fact the poor and excluded, who by their very nature cannot be all-rounder’s, were even excluded from the expensive extravagant event at Monte Casino.

The EFF ideological flip flopping is a perfect case of the Animal Farm of George Orwell. Remember the seven non-negotiable cardinal pillars of the Animals? Let’s remind ourselves of those again:

“1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.

2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.

3. No animal shall wear clothes.

4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.

5. No animal shall drink alcohol.

6. No animal shall kill any other animal.

7. All animals are equal.”

Well in the Orlando Stadium in Soweto the EFF leaders, dressed like the workers and the poor, reminded the followers about the seven cardinal pillars – more so the fact that “(a)ll animals are equal”. After the launch as they went into the night, EFF leaders lived and dressed like capitalists thereby telling the masses that they (leadership) were not equal to the masses, that the masses are the enemy. Remember how the same happened on Animal Farm. Leaders bent the rules and negotiated the non-negotiable seventh pillar. When leaders eat on behalf of the hungry masses they affirm the principles for themselves because, “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

While the masses were bussed to the Launch Rally, EFF leaders drove top of the range capitalist cars – and they say they are for socialism. Thomas Sankara and Fidel Castro would have puked at the compradorial gluttony and showmanship. Workers by day, capitalists by night! It was the fashionista Felicia Mabuza-Suttle who put things into perspective by sheer accident. In appreciating the tuxedos she pointed out that according to “(i)mage experts … (c)lothes make a man”. She then concluded, “(d)ress for the position u want, not for position u have”. (See Felicia Mabuza-Suttle’s remarks on twitter on 3 May 2016).

Frantz Fanon, who is on paper one of the ideological drivers of the EFF and who has long been forgotten by the EFF leadership, has strongly warned about the comprador who only wishes to take the place of the white man and to this end perpetuate the system that excludes the majority. Fanon cautions that even the call for nationalisation by these compradoreial elements must be feared because;“[the] national middle class constantly demands the nationalization of the economy and of the trading sectors. This is because, from their point of view, nationalization does not mean placing the whole economy at the service of the nation and deciding to satisfy the needs of the nation. For them, nationalization does not mean governing the state with regard to the new social relations whose growth it has been decided to encourage. To them, nationalization quite simply means the transfer into native hands of those unfair advantages which are a legacy of the colonial period”.

Imagine what these people will do with state power. They are already running a class system where the poor and their desperation are used to fund the life styles of leaders. It is instructive to note that all those leaders who have historically brought about revolutionary change had fashioned their identities with the oppressed and had shunned the ways of the colonialists. Imagine Che Guevarra leaving the masses in the township, dropping his military fatigues for a tuxudo and claiming to represent the same masses oppressed by men and women in black suits. What we see today has been already predicted by Fanon when he said:

“In the colonial countries, the spirit of indulgence is dominant at the core of the bourgeoisie; and this is because the national bourgeoisie identifies itself with the Western bourgeoisie, from whom it has learnt its lessons. It follows the West-embourgeoisie along its path of negation and decadence without ever having emulated it in its first stages of exploration and invention, stages which are an acquisition of that Western bourgeoisie whatever the circumstances. In its beginnings, the national bourgeoisie of the colonial countries identifies itself with the decadence of the bourgeoisie of the West. We need not think that it is jumping ahead; it is in fact beginning at the end. It is already senile before it has come to know the petulance, the fearlessness or the will to succeed of youth.”

Sources

See the following links:

1. https://www.marxists.org/ subject/africa/fanon/pitfalls- national.htm

2. http://msxnet.org/orwell/ print/animal_farm.pdf