“Thought leader” Khaya Dlanga has produced a series of profoundly South African album covers. Julius Malema’s Greatest Hits feature the miscalculated blunders of the President of the ANC Youth League pasted onto COPE election flyers. Albeit work of viral campaigning genius, these randomly snatched quotes do little to concretise the vision of a party that magically materialised no more than four months ago. Instead, COPE is positioned as the party to vote for in order not to vote for the ANC.
COPE can’t have expected to enter the national consciousness on its own two feet. With such little time on its hands, the fledgling party’s campaigning strategy can do little more than brandish an opposition flag and count on novelty appeal. Naturally, hinging its identity on the ANC is what it will take to carve out a piece of South Africa’s political pie. As such, COPE is raking in educated voters who are alienated by what Dlanga describes as Malema’s aptitude for eloquent buffoonery.
Malema certainly does have a knack for lending ammunition to the ANC’s opponents. His skills are such a conspiracy theorist might suggest that he is a COPE mole. If you examine the howler above, a little bit of deconstructive linguistics has a lot to say. Malema employs the zero conditional to express certainty. Put bluntly, the condition is that Zuma is corrupt and the result is that we want him. In a single sentence, Malema maligns Zuma, himself, the ANC and its constituency. Is this an act of suicide or is Malema on a quest to bring down the ANC from within?
