A Response to Cde Thabo Masombuka diatribe entitled "Time to end Malema madness"
In a normal situation, a diatribe entitled "time to end Malema madness" (Polticsweb 11 March 2011) which was presented as a genuine warning - albeit it latter appeared that it's just a factionalist warning - to delegates to the National Congress of the Youth League in June 2011 requires no response for fear of giving it legitimacy. However, such diatribe must be challenged lest it goes down in history books as a true reflection of what President Malema and his collective achieved during their term of office.
It is therefore against this brief background that I, as a potential delegate to the 2011 National Congress and branch Secretary of the ANC Youth League, would like to write this short paper to remind the Cde Thabo Masombuka about some of the victories that the ANCYL scored under branch President Julius Malema term.
Perhaps before I remind cde Thabo about most of "the good things that the Youth League has done under Malema", I must mention that any person who claims to be a former member and leader of the ANC Youth League must understand the ANCYL basics. For instance elementary politics teaches us that the ANCYL, inter alia, elects leadership in congress and not conferences (see your Youth League Constitution). Another basic issue that must be understood is that individual leaders form part of the collective hence victories and setbacks must be equally attributed to the collective rather than singling out one individual leader.
Moreover, objective reading of the history of the ANC YL indicates that the young Mandela and other YL members were more militant than the current generation including President Malema to a point that they (Mandela) disrupted meetings and punching some Communists. Obviously, this does not mean unruliness and violence is permissible but it's important that we remind one another about this since the theory of unity of opposites/dialectics argues that there is always, although fragmented at times, a connection between the past, future and the present.
Hence, any comparison between the 1994 generation of the Youth League and the current one must be objective and holistic instead of being opportunistic and selective while noting that material conditions have changed significantly. However this is not the main point for pinning down this short paper. The point is to refute the main factionalist allegation made by Cde Thabo that "it's even difficult for one to remember the good things that the Youth League has done under Malema...(and that)...the ANC YL has engaged in no substantive, real and tangible political or even social campaigns".