The Calabash was EFFull. It now stands empty again.

South Africa witnessed the filling of its largest stadium, the Calabash, at the instance of celebrating ten years of the Economic Freedom Front led by Julius Malema. Decorated as the former President of COSAS and ANCYL, Julius is by far one of the most seasoned leaders of his generation and a rising political leader of the 2020s. The consolidation of Julius from an inconvenient youth to a potential alternative that South Africa might be searching for was on display. 

Brand EFF and Julius Malema had an encounter with South Africa and the world in the dimensions of time and space. The generational cohorts that Malema is threading into a political movement not only embody contemporary political discontent and imagination of South Africa but do trigger emotional signals and questions about what the liberation struggle was about. Save for the truths of the land question, foregrounding corruption as a national pandemic, and liquidating the ANC as the singular custodian of the economic emancipation of South Africa, Malema has been able to productise the accumulated service delivery neglect and mistakes of the past thirty years into a value proposition that the EFF is becoming to black discontent. 

In an election season, not only are interests a currency of politics, but perceptions have a higher premium. Deciding on which political party you will vote for has several nuances that are yet to be understood. With over fifteen years of youth leadership, Julius has mastered the Black youth "feel-good hormone" to generate receptivity to his politics. The absence of youth leadership in the governing party for almost a decade he has been building the EFF has made Malema represent a future no other youth leader has been able to refute. 

As youth exuberance was displayed in the calabash, news about the liberation movement was about its veterans being in a National Elective Conference and deep in discussions on "Renewal of the ANC to Advance the National Democratic Revolution". Opening the Conference, its leadership continued to discourage any coalition with what filled the calabash as a value proposition for the future, the EFF. The two events have demonstrated that, in principle, it is possible to have two movements having a lively conversation with or about society, although they speak in two different languages. One movement insists that there is a silver bullet to settling land as a national grievance, while another believes society must buy into solving the grievance. 

In the calabash, there was a concentration of youth representative of a generation born during the new constitutional order. They live the benefits of that order and are core designers of what the democratic order should look like. They have all understood that there is a liberation promise a post-1994 South Africa has for them, and only they can make it a reality. In his speech, Julius Malema unequivocally declared that he leads a generational mission whose beneficiaries were beyond those in the Calabash. 

South Africa is a reordered world in all respects. The generation congregating at Birchwood in Boksburg has all the rights to claim and own that their lives were catalytic to the new democratic, constitutional, and somewhat political order. The calabash represented a generation with the right to declare they are "the first generation to navigate this reordered world". 

When Floyd Shivambo introduced Julius Malema at the celebration, he likened him to Africa's greats, such as Sobukwe, Sankara, Biko, and, very interestingly, Anton Lembede of the Congress Youth League. We might disagree with his characterisation, but reading what Lembede stood for, it is challenging to say the leadership of the EFF are not living what Lembede said. "We are not called to peace, comfort and enjoyment but to hard work, struggle and sweat. We need young men and women of high moral stamina, integrity, courage and vision. In short, we need warriors. This means that we have to develop a new type of youth of stoical discipline, trained to endure suffering and difficulties. It is only this type of youth that will achieve the national liberation of the African people". These breed of youth might well have been in the calabash. 

In Calabash, there was a new bureaucracy of change. A bureaucracy that has a hierarchy focused on what they called cardinal pillars of the economic emancipation movement. A bureaucracy that has a solid sense of self-definition and believes as its liberator. Whilst the rhetoric in the calabash was reminiscent of the National Democratic Revolution days of Julius Malema as ANCYL President, this time, he was clear that his movement is not about using an old playbook that’s been passed forward through the generations and yielding no change. His was about defining the true liberation promise post-1994 is about. 

The calabash was red, delivered messages, and reverberated far and near. Interior to our politics, its echoes will be heard through election day in 2024. What the calabash represents is beyond what voters will pronounce; it represents a new consciousness, a redefined way of self-determination in South Africa, and a recalibration of social, political, and racial hierarchies. The calabash is a contribution; it is a dimension of the liberation movement that could not find expression inside the often "oppressive bureaucracies" in a century or older organisations. The calabash has emptied itself; it stands empty again; it needs another filling for society to drink. Julius filled the calabash. CUT!!!🤷🏿‍♂️