The Friends of the Youth League and the Cult of Personality
The launching of the Friends of the Youth League signals a turning point in the evolution of the ANCYL as a revolutionary and militant youth movement. In fact, it actually lays bare the cult of personality as represented by Julius Malema. This is the cult of personality that some of us have been bewailing about for some time now. The chief representative of the cult of personality has subjugated the ANCYL to his modus operandi, that of ensuring that members work for the cult instead of the organisation.
Like Stalin in the old Russia, the chief representative of the cult of personality has preached with fervent frequency a revolutionary mantra whilst turning some members of the ANCYL and ANC into something of a worshiping congregation that must do as he says without question. Like Stalin, he has used respected names of our revolutionary movement - Lembede, Mandela, Sisulu, Tambo - to cast himself as a representative of that which these leaders fought for.
If one cares to glance at the period that Stalin was in charge after Lenin died, there are certain things that we ought to learn from there so that we do not allow the cult of personality to destroy the ANC and ANCYL. The way that Russian people were gullible towards Stalin as their saviour par Lenin is an instructive lesson. To ever think that Stalin was the chief representative of Lenin's ideas was a fundamental mistake that Russian people still live to regret up to this day.
Just to illustrate their gullibility, one Russian author passionately penned the following:
"Thank you, Stalin. Thank you because I am joyful. Thank you because I am well. No matter how old I become, I shall never forget how we received Stalin two days ago. Centuries will pass, and the generations still to come will regard us as the happiest of mortals, as the most fortunate of men, because we lived in the century of centuries, because we were privileged to see Stalin, our inspired leader...