PERHAPS it's due to all the attention he has been receiving lately, but Julius Malema has now suggested that the Economic Freedom Fighters would take up arms against the ruling party should the government be silly enough to respond to them with force.
As he put it, in a pre-recorded interview aired on SAfm, "We can't rule out the possibility of an armed struggle if the state is going to meet peaceful protest with violence. We would not do anything which seeks to compromise the 1994 breakthrough and it all depends on how the state responds to the radical demands of our people."
The EFF commander-in-chief had reportedly added that he hoped the ANC would not be tempted to adopt "apartheid tactics" when faced with what he termed "serious pressure".
Thing is - at least as far as we're concerned, here at the Mahogany Ridge - the ruling party long ago yielded to the temptation of behaving like the old Nationalist government. But, as far as actual state violence against them was concerned, the EFF had no need to fear anything just yet.
Malema apparently made his comments in reference to the celebrated disruption of President Jacob Zuma's question-and-answer session in the National Assembly in August, when the Teletubbies chanted that Zuma pay back some of the R246m spent on the Nkandla security upgrades.
The EFF MPs had refused to leave the chamber when ordered to do so by the speaker, Baleka "Goldfields" Mbete, and members of the riot squad were summonsed to the parliamentary precinct. There was no need, Malema told SAfm, for this "military response" from the state.