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Dear Voter, let’s talk frankly about…the EFF’s magic wand

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Dr Onkgopotse JJ Tabane is the Editor of Leadership Magazine and Anchor of Power to Truth on ENCA. He holds a PhD in media studies from Wits University. He is CEO of a communications company Sgwili Media Group and is Author of Lets Talk Frankly. He is also a trustee of the Love Life Trust, The UWC Foundation as well as Chair of the UWC Media Society.

John Lennon said it best. “You may say that I am a dreamer - but I am not the only one.”

Dear Voter,

Let me humbly propose that while the EFF is still celebrating the gathering of “close to 80,000” people who crammed into a “close to  20,000” capacity stadium in Tombs, I ask them to adopt the song ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon as a theme song for their march to power on 7 May. The song is considered to have some of the most dream-filled lyrics of the last century. I can imagine that it could have easily been a national anthem of the then USSR, whose failed socialist policies are legendary.

I invite you to examine with me some of the lyrics of this classic and see how they match the EFF Manifesto.

Watch: John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’

‘No hell below us/Above us only sky’

The EFF imagines that there will be no poverty once the mines are taken over. These are mines currently owned by global corporate citizens and local partners. They will be expected to join in and sing along with the EFF and lose everything they have ever invested in the last 20 years of our democracy. This may explain why out of 200 odd parties, the EFF is the only one imagining this state of affairs after 7 May 2014.  Theirs is the ‘blue-sky theory’ where the current owners of the mines will roll over and play dead when the state seizes their assets. The state has had experience running one mine. No prizes for guessing how fantastic all that has been — it is now expected that this will suddenly be their core competency with fantastic results and profits that will fund the fanciful promises made by the EFF. Indeed there will be no hell below us, above us only sky!

‘Imagine all the people/Living for today’

Under the EFF we will all live for today. Sustainability will be too difficult to spell and planning for future generations too burdensome. Just identify white people, accuse them of stealing property and farms etc., take away their property and give them nothing in return. Oh – why not expel them from the country while you are at it — yes, deport them to the country of origin, from where whomever you think stole the land came. After all, you would have accused and judged them of having ‘stolen the land’. It makes perfect sense. Imagine. No point planning what will happen tomorrow. Under the EFF we only need to ‘live for today’. We don’t need to think of Foreign Direct Investments and what such policy idiocy that will be implemented will do to their appetite for investing in this country to create sustainable jobs. We just need to take 60% of Woolies and Pick ‘n Pay and that will solve all our problems. These investors are after all just “bloody agents” with “rubbish in their trousers”, as Julius so eloquently put it. Of course, if dear Dali is to be believed, Julius is now very much refined and this is a “totally new ball game”; we  should forget all the foul things he said.

‘Imagine no possessions/I wonder if you can?/No need for greed or hunger/A brotherhood of man/ Imagine all the people/Sharing all the world’

The EFF will increase social grants and give everyone a penthouse to live in. After all, they won’t be an LSM in EFF Land, where everyone will be equal and Malema will be driven around in a Mazda Sting. He will have no possessions, he won’t have to pay rates in Sandton and have his house go under the hammer due to failure to pay bonds. And without possessions there will be no need to pay tax. So, under the EFF I guess we can close down SARS. There will be no presidential house in more than one city. And no spousal allowances, as Juju does not anticipate any EFF president saying “I do”. There will indeed be no need for greed and hunger in EFF Land, only the brotherhood of fighters with equal salaries. Makes me wonder why you would need a  ‘minimum’ wage if everyone’s salary will be the same. Will this mean those who were already earning more will have their salary reduced to achieve this equality? After all, we are one of the most unequal societies in the world.

‘You may say that I’m a dreamer/But I’m not the only one/I hope someday you will join us/And the world will live as one’

Dear Voter, take a minute and just imagine… and if you can so imagine these things, well then, why not vote EFF?

I imagine that for these things to come to pass, we need nothing less than their magic wand. I suppose it is a case of Madiba magic to Malema magic. John Lennon says it’s “easy if you try”.

We might as well imagine there is no country! Oh, that reminds me of another classic – “What a wonderful world”!

Yours frankly,

Onkgopotse JJ Tabane. DM

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