THE ruling party has unsurprisingly come over all aggrieved and wounded animal-like at the Democratic Alliance's plans to march on Luthuli House on February 4 to highlight the failure to create jobs.
ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu has been quick to point out that DA leader Helen Zille and her supporters could be in for the same sort of treatment they received when they marched on Cosatu's Braamfontein offices in May 2012.
And how well we remember that bloody day. Beleaguered trade unionists, set upon by a cheerful horde from the suburbs armed to the teeth with a memorandum about the youth wage subsidy, were forced to defend themselves by throwing rocks and attacking anyone in a blue T-shirt until the riot police arrived.
Back then, Mthembu had warned that this would happen. And on Wednesday he was at it again. "To us," he said, somewhat enigmatically, "this march by the DA is extreme provocation to the ANC. It can't be anything else. What happens if our members come to protect Chief Albert Luthuli House? We should remind them what happened when they marched somewhere."
And, as if that wasn't a clear enough threat, the ANC Youth League has vowed to meet the DA head-on. They seem eager, in the post-Julius Malema toothless phase, to demonstrate they've lost none of that legendary appetite for radical confrontation. According to national convener Mzwandile Masina , the league will be mobilising to to barricade Luthuli House with a human shield of supporters. "We will make sure the DA meets us on that day," Masina said.
On a more positive note, it must be said that the ANC are quite correct in suggesting the march is a publicity stunt. It is heartening that, some 20 years into our democracy, the ruling party appears to fundamentally understand that, in exercising their constitutional right to assemble in such a manner, the marchers indeed wish to draw attention to a situation they believe to be in dire need of, um, attention.