Dear Diary,

To quote a line from one of my favourite 1990s rappers, Ice Cube: “Today was a good day… I didn’t even have to use my AK.” 

What a great day to be South African, dear diary. Spring has sprung, my garden is in full bloom, spectacularly so – and one of our most talented and influential politicians, the one and only Julius Malema, recently spoke out against corruption and warned would-be corrupt EFF leaders that “you will regret the day you joined the EFF because it will not allow corruption”. 

Malema’s stern warning to corrupt members: You will rue the day you joined the EFF

I shit you not, dear diary; it may sound ridiculous, totally unbelievable, and insulting to a listener’s intelligence to even hear it, but it’s true, my garden really is in full bloom even though it’s only early September. What a thing!

My cup truly runneth over, not least because, in addition to the floral miracle just outside my window, my colleagues at Daily Maverick and my ninth favourite politician are finally ideologically aligned on the issue of corruption. 

I’ve been a long-time fan of Mr Malema – not an easy thing while working at the Daily Maverick office. Phew, all the heckling and stuff. Still, from #KillForZuma to #ZumaMustFall to #TeaWithZuma, I’ve loved all the Malemas, and I’m definitely into the new #KillTheCorruption Malema. 

The way I see it, just like and phones and computers, humans should be allowed and encouraged to update their operating system from time to time. As for me, I’m loving the MalemaOS 22 update. It’s magic.

“We have a problem of corruption in South Africa and we’ve started to have a problem of corruption in the EFF now…” said the refreshingly observant, updated Malema in his speech after the EFF elected its new provincial leadership in September. I, for one, am so glad that he’s spotted this problem within the EFF just as it “started”. 

I hope this wonderful news has reached – and brought relief to – my dear colleague, Pauli van Wyk, who’s spent many a day and night going through financial documents, bank statements and tax documents that proved Mr Malema and Mr Shivambu’s involvement in that VBS scam and the millions that came their way. 

Maybe she can find peace now, knowing all the corrupted code from the previous MalemaOS has been fixed. 

I remember one time when she told me a story of a granny who kept her life savings under her mattress, not trusting the banks, until VBS came along. That granny and many of her friends put all their money into the bank, only to lose it all. 

Many died before they could get their money back, including her. Perhaps their families, too, will find relief knowing that the updated MalemaOS has put Julius on a mission to root out corruption and protect them from the cold-hearted grifters who would steal their life savings. 

I must say, dear diary, that today I also feel less alone than I did yesterday, thanks to the MalemaOS 22 view on the issue of receiving gifts. You see, we’re not allowed to accept gifts at Daily Maverick, not even a lousy goodie bag. Just because those political journos can’t accept gifts, now the rest of us can’t either. 

This is a rather challenging situation for a lifestyle writer such as me, who has to turn down numerous gifts from sweet, generous PR agencies every single week. How am I to recommend the finer things in life if I do not allow those who make and sell the finer things to adorn my home, body and life with said finer things?

Hence, I much prefer updated Julius’s measured take on gifts. 

“You ought to stay away from corrupt people. And do not take unsolicited, even solicited, gifts from dodgy characters who may be in trouble tomorrow,” he told the new leadership at the EFF’s People’s Assembly. 

The learned listener, as all EFF supporters undoubtedly are, will understand a couple of key points in Mr Malema’s statement. First, stay away from the corrupt, or, more accurately, as he put it, “you ought to…” I do appreciate Mr Malema making this more of a recommendation than a non-negotiable. After all, a great leader knows not to impose their ideals on others. 

Second, understanding that while many gifts may be unsolicited – such as those I have to turn down every week – he acknowledges that some gifts may have already been solicited by this crop of leaders in anticipation of their new position of influence, and he gives them some wiggle room, as it were, telling them not to take “even solicited gifts from dodgy characters who may be in trouble tomorrow”. 

The key here is to be a discerning receiver of gifts, and only turn down gifts from “dodgy characters who may be in trouble tomorrow”. Now, only if my bosses understood this simple concept, my wardrobe would be nothing short of Shivambian; Malemaesque, even. 

Hopefully, a DailyMaverickOS 22 is in the works and they can incorporate this kind of considered open-ended approach to gifts that are not from dodgy people who might be in trouble tomorrow. 

Otherwise, I think I might have to consider sending my CV to Dr Iqbal Survé, there by IOL. I hear they might have an opening since the fabulously talented and ridiculously imaginative Jamie Roz went AWOL. Come to think of it, my own highly active imagination might be better suited to the creative style of news reporting pioneered by great minds such Roz and Rampedi under the leadership of the visionary Survé. 

Once I worm my way there, I am almost guaranteed to report on the Solar System’s first 12 babies born to a proudly South African mother – come to think of it, I should call them Iqbalplets, in honour of our Dearest Greatest Most Infinitely Endowed Leader.

I’m seriously beginning to find Daily Maverick’s obsession with defending the truth to be rather passé in this post-truth era. One would think it should be very obvious to any and all who have paid attention over the past few years that truly great political minds are asking of us open our minds, to update them and discard old notions of truth as being tethered to fact, and realise that truth can be what we say it is; it need not be restricted and defined by yesterday’s facts. 

Indeed, if my leader updates his MalemaOS and says he is a corruption-buster today, who am I to judge him by yesterday’s ill-gotten millions?  Who am I to hold him to account for the grannies who died of broken hearts without a cent to their name? DM/ML