OPINION

Malema touches us on our curry

Andrew Donaldson says this time the EFF leader has gone too far

OH dear, but even for Julius Malema, whose cloddish insensitivity is legendary, this was a step too far, an insult beyond the pale. He has touched us on our curry.

It was one thing for the chump to declare that the Economic Freedom Fighters would be disrupting President Jacob Zuma’s forthcoming State of the Nation Address. But to go for the bunny? 

As expected, Malema’s press briefing on Thursday was a bellicose affair, and there came dire warnings that Zuma should not expect an easy fumble through his speech – especially if he failed to provide a credible explanation for the cavalier hiring and firing of finance ministers in December, a bit of three card monte that cost the economy an estimated R171-billion.

Not even the presence of Speaker Baleka Mbete’s White Shirts would deter the EFF, Malema said, and he was not afraid of forced ejection from Parliament’s chambers. These are words he may come to regret; they dress like waiters because that’s the business of the parliamentary protection services: dishing out the snotklappe.

And speaking of which, this may or may not be the sort of treatment those who work for media owned by Zuma’s allies, the controversial Gupta family, could expect should they cover EFF events. 

At the same briefing, Malema described The New Age newspaper and the ANN7 TV channel as “propaganda machinery”, and warned these “protectors of corruption” would not be tolerated. Addressing their reporters, he said, somewhat ominously: “Sisters and brothers in Gupta firms we love you and don’t want you to be casualties. We cannot guarantee the safety of those printing New Age and ANN7.”

The South African National Editors Forum has rightly condemned these remarks as being dangerous and unacceptable, and called on the EFF to reaffirm the rights to media freedom and association.

If only the editors would be as unequivocal on recent descriptions in the media of the Guptas as “the influential family”. It’s particularly annoying. Darwin’s Origin of the Species can be described as “influential”, as can The Beatles’ Revolver album and Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. But the Guptas? I think not.

But back to the curry. This is now the second time Malema has revealed his bigotry in this regard. On Thursday he declared, “We are not going to allow a South Africa that is sold over a plate of curry.” He said much the same thing in 2013.

Quite apart from the anti-Indian racism, his antipathy displays an ignorance of a cultural and historical masala that is particularly woeful in one who so loudly claims to be an anti-colonialist.

Its origins may be Indian, but curry has conquered among others Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Fiji, Japan, Korea, the West Indies and, of course, huge chunks of Africa. Simply put, curry is empire.

It’s had South Africans in its sway for more than 250 years, and we have two types in our national cuisine – Cape Malay and Natal. For their first date, Nelson Mandela treated a young Nomzamo Winifred Madikizela to lunch at his favourite curry restaurant, Kapitan’s, in Kort St, Johannesburg. The future Mother of the Nation™ was unaccustomed to the spiciness, and her visible distress greatly amused Mandela. Such was courtship back in the 1950s.

Even Great Britain has fallen. Like an ill-advised take-out after a Friday night bender, curry came back on its former masters as if in revenge for the Raj. 

The takeover began at the India Club, at the Strand Continental, in Aldwych, London, one of the oldest such institutions in Europe. It opened in 1950, and for years served as the canteen for the nearby (and only slightly older) Indian high commission. 

The wave of immigrants from the subcontinent that followed further contributed to curry’s eventual domination of the UK. The high commission staffers were able to lunch further afield. The India Club remained as it was, though, somehow locked in a 1950s time capsule – which is part of its slightly down-at-heel charm. 

I first visited it in 2004. There were faded, dusty portraits of Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi on one wall. Nehru, India’s first prime minister, dined there, but not Gandhi. The Great Soul had already passed on by the time the India Club had opened. And besides, as the joke went, he wouldn’t have eaten all that much anyway.

Visitors to Britain are urged to try the place. It’s cheap as chips – but way, way better. And, unlike the commander-in-chief, you may learn something.

Lastly, #CurryMustNotFall and mine’s a tandoori lamb off the bone.

This article first appeared in the Weekend Argus.