A FAMOUS GROUSE
DOWN dooby doo down down … it was Neil Sedaka who first alerted teenage pop fans many, many years ago to the sad reality that breaking up is indeed hard to do. It is a no less painful experience these days, judging by the snot en trane around Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu’s shattered bromance.
Sadly, this continues to be a very messy business. Juju is still hurting over the break-up. Speaking to reporters ahead of the EFF’s elective conference next month, the somewhat beleaguered EFF leader has now threatened to “spill the beans” about the party’s former deputy president should he be “pushed”.___STEADY_PAYWALL___
“I never initiated a fight with anyone,” Juju said. “I regarded [Shivambu] as my brother. If he doesn’t feel the same about me it’s his problem. I did everything for him as a brother. If I must be challenged one day and be pushed, I will talk. Don’t push me.”
He’s clearly still in the shock and denial stage. This a full three months after Shivambu left the party he co-founded to join the Umkhonto weSizwe Party, where he is now secretary-general. Acceptance and intense self-reflection will no doubt follow and, although things will never be the same again, perhaps Juju will then be able to get on with his life.
What intrigues, though, are these “beans”. What are they exactly, and who will do this pushing that will result in the dislodging of these apparently explosive legumes? Why can’t they be spilled now? Why haven’t they already been spilled?
These, I feel, are the sort of questions that today’s journalists are failing to ask. There is a strong suggestion of blackmail here, that the leader is asserting his authority through underhanded means. If that is the case, then it is all too obvious why Shivambu has left him. One cannot hope to build a trusting and loving relationship through coercion and manipulation.
But, and away from the agony aunt stuff, has Juju got some dirt on Shivambu? Something that the public ought to know? Should there be something, it must be fairly serious given what we already know about Fraud. He’s run the scandal gamut from assaulting journalists to raiding pensions, from going large on the posh booze to questionable facial hair. What else could there possibly be?
We may never know the answers. What we do know, however, is that all is not well with the redshirts.
City Press reported at the weekend that another founding member, Alfred Motsi, had left the EFF to join the MKP. He was the first North West provincial convener when the party was formed in 2013. His resignation came barely a month after the party’s former national chair, Dali Mpofu, left to join the MKP.
Other high-profile Effniks who had recently deserted to sign up with the MKP include former public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane, troubled race theorist Mzwanele “Jimmy” Manyi, founding member Fana Mokoena and SRC student command representative council member Kganki Mphahlele.
It may not be much of a consolation, but Juju could draw some comfort from the fact his party is now not so full of crap. And, speaking of which, he has dismissed speculation that another prominent EFF MP, Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, is being squeezed from the party, as “some toilet discussions”.
Earlier in the month, City Press reported that Ndlozi had been barred from the EFF conference, a move that was apparently part of a wider strategy to curtail his participation in the party’s activities. A new deputy president is expected to be elected at the conference, scheduled to be held in Johannesburg from December 13 to 15.
The party hierarchy — that is, Juju — is said to favour former secretary Godrich Gardee as Fraud’s successor. But younger EFF upstarts want the somewhat shouty and more radical Ndlozi to get the job. Ndlozi. however, has indicated that he is not available for election as deputy president.
No fool he, obviously knowing full well what it means to incur the wrath of the leadership. For all that, the leadership is taking no chances here, and has according barred Ndlozi from attending the conference.
The leadership has meanwhile distanced itself from the Ndlozi report. “When you gossip at kitchens in Braamfontein,” Juju told reporters, “don’t involve us in those discussions; we don’t know what you are talking about.”
He added that he has been accused of a dictatorial leadership style ever since his days as ANC Youth League president — yet people still flocked to join the party of “a dictator. Why do you join it? Just stay home … If you are not happy with the leadership, the door is open; you can leave now.”
More will probably do just that in the coming weeks. From the bathroom to the kitchen, this is evidently not a happy home.
Hot stuff
News from the war in Ukraine. It appears that the 10 000 or so North Korean troops who have been sent to Russia to bolster Vladimir Putin’s grim adventure there are taking advantage of unfettered access to the internet and have been gorging on pornography. As the New York Post smirked in a puerile manner, “Hardened soldiers, indeed.”
The tabloid noted that the Pentagon has not been able to verify these reports. “As entertaining as that sounds,” a US defence spokesman said, “I can’t confirm any North Korean internet habits or virtual ‘extracurriculars’ in Russia. We’re focused on the more serious aspects of North Korea’s involvement, if any, in Russia’s military operations. As for internet access, that’s a question best directed to Moscow. Right now, our attention remains on supporting Ukraine and addressing the more significant regional security concerns.”
Right. Whatever. But here at the Slaughtered Lamb (“Finest Ales & Pies”) our interest is piqued. The “extracurriculars” of any friends of the friends of the ANC are of concern and we have, accordingly, plumbed the depths of this peculiar rabbit hole. Because someone must.
Firstly, one can understand the attraction. The possession, production, distribution and importation of pornography is outlawed in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Those who fall foul of censorship laws are harshly punished; this is a workers’ paradise, after all, and the forbidden fruits of degenerate capitalism are supposedly surplus to requirements.
Further investigation indicates that, prior to their current deployment, the average North Korean soldier’s experience of erotica was very limited. In fact, what had previously passed for porn in Pyongyang was quite tame and dated by Western standards and most of the bootleg filth in the DPRK was unlikely to raise more than a bemused eyebrow among connoisseurs of the form.
According to Wikipedia, this antiquated North Korean smut “typically involves nude or scantily clad women dancing to music”. One can easily imagine Kim Jong Un’s forces in the sway of extremely mild Western waywardness. A 1960s Playboy centrefold, let’s say. (You can almost hear the awed reaction: “제플린 경주의 사진 마무리.” That, should you ask, is Korean for “Photo-finish in a zeppelin race”.)
Putin’s war has however proved to be an eye-opener for rank and file infantrymen who may now regard vintage pin-ups as quaint and passé. What they are now seeing was previously the exclusive preserve of the North Korean elite. Such is the nature of egalitarianism in autocracies; one’s betters always get the good stuff.
But this, sadly, is not always easy and top nobs in the Workers Party of Korea do struggle from time to time in maintaining a grip on privilege.
The country’s diplomatic corps is one example. A recent Air Mail newsletter notes that staff in North Korea’s embassies and consulates are expected to finance their own operations and send additional funds home.
They often do so by dodgy means, and records of DPRK diplomatic missions engaged in illicit funding drives date back to at least October 1976 when Norwegian police uncovered an operation in which diplomatic bags were used to smuggle alcohol and cigarettes into Oslo that were then sold on the black market. Similar efforts were soon uncovered in other Nordic countries. In Denmark, hashish was also discovered in diplomatic pouches.
Readers may recall that, in December 2015, a North Korean diplomat, Park Chol-jun, was expelled from South Africa for illegal rhino horn trading. He had been arrested in Mozambique driving a car with South African diplomatic plates and with 4.5 kilograms of rhino horn and almost $100 000 in cash in his possession.
Given that Pyongyang’s high-ranking political and defence officials are the country’s most active consumers of the stuff, it is highly likely that diplomats are smuggling foreign pornographic material into North Korea on an industrial scale.
With that in mind, those looking to get rid of their well-thumbed collections of Hustler, Asian Babes and Loslyf magazines may wish to drop them off at the DPRK embassy in Pretoria (958 Waterpoort St, Faerie Glen 0081). They will be gratefully received. Be sure to clearly indicate that your charitable donation is for the war effort.
The school sadists: a follow-up
Further to the resignation of Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, following a damning report on the Church of England’s handling of the serial abuser John Smyth (as reported here a fortnight ago), attention now turns to the Anglican Church in South Africa.
Shortly after Welby’s resignation, the Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba, announced that the church would be launching its own inquiry into the activities of Smyth, a British lawyer whose monstrous abuse of boys and young men at church camps and other CoE institutions stretched back more than five decades.
The panel conducting the review is comprised of civil society leader Mamphela Ramphele, senior advocate Jeremy Gauntlett and retired Appeal Court judge Ian Farlam. They will report back to Makgoba on the past actions of the church in South Africa, including its handling of reports of Smyth’s abuse in the UK between 1981-82 and in Zimbabwe in the 1990s. The church insists that it knows of no cases of abuse by Smyth in South Africa, where he lived, mainly in Cape Town, in the five years prior to his death in 2018.
This is an odd development. Falling on his crozier, Welby has admitted that his “incompetence” and “really shaming failure” had allowed Smyth to carry on his abuse from 2013 onwards. But, as Private Eye reports, responsibility for this lapse should not all go to Welby; as the UK’s Makin Review makes clear, at least ten bishops and a further 30 rank and file clergy knew of Smyth’s appalling behaviour but failed to stop him.
Heading this list is Makgoba, who was briefed on Smyth in August 2013 by his suffragan bishop, Bishop Garth Counsell of Table Bay. Counsell, in turn, had been warned about Smyth in a letter he’d received earlier that month from Bishop Stephen Conway, then Bishop of Ely.
According to Private Eye, Conway received the first “modern” disclosure about Smyth in 2013 and it was his responsibility to take the matter up with the authorities. “[Conway] says he reported it to Cambridgeshire Police and social services,” the magazine notes, “but neither has any record of receiving a formal complaint.”
Murkier and murkier, I’m afraid. The findings of the Makgoba inquiry could be very troubling.
