Rabbie Serumula, author, award-winning poet, journalist.
Julius Malema may be discovering the cost of being right too early. Or perhaps the cost of being consistent.
As anti-illegal immigration protests gather momentum across parts of South Africa, a noticeable shift is taking place in public discourse. It can be heard in taxi ranks, on radio call-in shows, in community meetings and, perhaps most revealingly, in the comment sections beneath news articles and social media posts.
The mood is changing. Most political parties are moving toward some version of "South Africans first". The ANC increasingly speaks of illegal immigration as a security concern linked to porous borders. ActionSA has built significant political capital around immigration. MK Party supporters often echo similar sentiments.
Meanwhile, the EFF continues to defend a recognisably Pan-African position. That creates an intriguing political question: is Julius Malema standing on principle while the country moves elsewhere, or is he defending an idea whose time has not yet come? Yet the real story is bigger than the EFF.
