While it’s certainly no secret that we try to steer well clear of the pessimistic soap opera that is South African politics, once in a while a story comes along that is so face-meltingly radical that it is literally impossible to ignore. Conservative estimates suggest that almost 100% of the time that this happens, it involves some combination of the ANCYL’s pudgy, bad-mannered leader Julius Malema and Floyd “We say what we mean and we mean what we say” Shivambu.

In an outstanding response to the deluge of fake Julius Malema profiles created on the Twitter (each more hilarious than the last), the ANCYL released a confused statement bearing the league spokesman’s name.

Not wishing to tarnish his long standing reputation of being comically unaware of his surroundings, he sends an ominous ultimatum to the “computer hackers” who are creating these accounts: “Those who are hacking systems and impersonating the ANCYL leadership should immediately stop doing so because the laws of this country will come very hard on them.”

In a staggering lack of understanding of how the internet actually functions, they went on to say that if appropriate action was not taken by the site administrators, the ANCYL would move to have Twitter shut down by the police.

“The ANCYL has in more than one occasion reported these impersonators and hackers, yet no action has been taken against them by the Twitter administrators. We will now approach the relevant authorities to report these hackers and call for the closer of Twitter if its administrators are not able to administer reports for violation of basic human rights and integrity.”

To be fair, the police have yet to find my video camera that was stolen from my house last month. The fact that Floyd thinks that they wield the power to shut down a multi-national corporation on account of “hurt feelings”, is just stunning.

Go for it guys. You “closer” down that Twitters. Come all over them if you have to. Just be sure to continue to release statements like this, that remind us that the South African political landscape is awash with gripping narrative and sexual tension.

[Source: Mail & Guardian]

[Image: Gallo Images]