Shivambu juggles many complex balls while seeking a trough in the political feedlot

Swapping combat fatigues for a suit and tie (briefly), Floyd Shivambu goes, for now, by the title of national convenor of Mayibuye Consultation Process.

Shivambu has also made it known that he (sorry, the movement) intends to run in the 2026 local government elections (and beyond). In which case, he might become known as convenor-in-chief.

Unequivocal and final

On 8 August, Shivambu placed on Elon Musk’s platform X the following: “I, Nyiko Floyd Shivambu, hereby fully accept the decision by the uMKhonto weSizwe Party (MK Party) to terminate my membership of the organisation.

“This acceptance is unequivocal and final. I will not appeal the decision, as I respect the processes and structures of the organisation that I once served as National Organiser and Secretary General. Mayibuye iAfrika!”.

Over on the same media platform, the Honourable Duduzile Sambudla-Zuma, who had once told Daddy and the rest of the country that Shivambu had been “the worst thing that ever happened to MK”, the schadenfreude must have been unbearable.

Before things fell apart while the centre still held, Sambudla-Zuma had been forced to apologise twice for X-ing: “Fuck you Floyd, You are the worst thing that happened to MK”.

Troubled water under the bridge.

What would Marx say?

Speaking of  X, where they say people play four-dimensional chess, Shivambu’s bio still reads, “believes in Dialectical Materialism and Labour Theory of Value. Heterodox”.

For those of you who thought “heterodox” was a pronoun, it is not. It means, in a nutshell, a thinker who does not conform to any old economic or other theory.

Meanwhile, the Afrika Mayibuye movement’s X feed posted, “We must remember that the Bible is our original constitution.”

Shivambu has many complex balls to juggle, as we have come to understand.

But what would Karl Marx do with the above sentiment about the Bible?

And also, if the foundation of dialectical materialism is that the material world (economic, social, environmental) is what sparks movement, thought, ideas, rather than the other way around, how does Shivambu explain his expulsion from MK?

Asking for a friend.

Afrika Mayibuye was quick off the mark, celebrating a Women’s Day event at Midrand Mhulu Luxury Boutique Hotel this past weekend. What better venue to suit up potential revolutionaries?

The tide is high

At the weekend, Shivambu informed a Gauteng gathering of interested parties that the “movement” was in the process of being registered as a political party.

Consultations so far, he said, had indicated that South Africa was ready for a “revolutionary political movement”.

Of his former comrade in alms, commander-in-chief and leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), Julius Malema, not a kind word passed Shivambu’s lips.

Malema, said Shivambu at the weekend, was childish — and all of those messy disruptions in Parliament we used to sit through were all Malema’s idea, and fault.

“There was only one person who initiated those disruptions … it was grandstanding. What was the tactical value?” asked Shivambu.

Meanwhile, he said, the younger members of the EFF who disrupted legislatures “just go to disrupt and engage themselves in violence. What kind of revolution is that?” DM