The more things change, the more they stay the same, and history, more often than not, has a way of repeating itself.
These two adages rang true in the past weeks when observing 26-year-old EFF Students Command leader Sihle Lonzi and how he has passionately inherited the political cold war between elders — EFF leader Julius Malema and MK Party national organiser Floyd Shivambu.
Lonzi, a sharp, up-and-coming politician with all the hallmarks of being a heavyweight national leader in his senior years, is committing the same mistake Malema and Shivambu committed.
Many other young politicians have committed the same mistake, but some have survived to tell the tale, while many have gotten their once-promising careers destroyed.
In the oldest liberation movement on the continent, the ANC, it has been common sense for ages that ANC Youth League (ANCYL) leaders are endorsed by whichever dominant faction among the elders so as to attack their opponents using the young lions.
Malema and Shivambu have been in that position before at the height of Jacob Zuma’s tight grip at the helm of the ANC.
Everyone who opposed Zuma during his first term as ANC president will tell you about the wrath you would receive from the ANCYL, under the leadership of Malema, with Shivambu drafting media statements criticizing Zuma’s opponents.
But here is the danger: when Zuma was done using them, young and promising, he let them surrender to the wolves when they were expelled from the ANC.
But because they had married themselves to a faction of elders and inherited battles that had nothing to do with them, there were very few friends who were willing to risk it defending the people who had insulted them for years.
This is the danger that Lonzi is facing and must guard against.
Anti-Shivambu salvos
Since the departure of Shivambu from the red berets brigade to the green army, Lonzi has distinguished himself as the face of the anti-Shivambu salvos within the EFF.
So much so, the young man has been on Shivambu’s case; he even mockingly renamed their former leader “VBS Floyd” in reference to the defunct Venda Burial Society (VBS) Mutual Bank.
It has become clear that Lonzi has picked a side, that of Malema, in the fallout with his long-term friend Shivambu.
But the risk he is taking that has the potential to backfire in the long term is that he does not have the full comprehension of where the fallout starts and ends.
And because stranger things have happened in politics over centuries, what becomes of him if some day Malema and Shivambu smoke the peace pipe?
Lonzi was in elementary school when Malema and Shivambu became national political leaders in their late 20s.
His understanding of how they became friends and comrades is only hearsay; he was never there to see the highs and lows himself.
What is clear is that Malema and Shivambu are the future leaders of this country, either under one roof if MK Party and EFF merge or individually in those two different outfits.
Where will Lonzi fit in that future when he is making an enemy of Shivambu at his young age to please Malema so he can rise through the ranks of the EFF?
The young man’s political standing and ability to play the game are enough to see him grow within politics without babysitting from senior leaders.
Without the assistance of EFF elders, Lonzi has led an impressive total takeover of EFF Students Command at South African institutions of higher learning.
By so doing, he has proved his mettle, and the biggest blunder he can commit is to hinge his political success on skirmishes between elders.
But also, I think Malema and Shivambu must rise above pettiness and address whatever caused their fallout once and for all.
Either they fight it out the ugliest way they want to until one of them is destroyed or they shake hands like gentlemen and move on in their different political paths they have chosen.
It is enough already trying to read Malema’s mind through Lonzi’s verbal and written salvos directed at the MK Party’s national organiser and cracking our heads attempting to decode the clapbacks by Shivambu.
