The Thick End of the Wedge [column]

Johannesburg, Oct 05, 2009 (Business Day/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- SSL | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- - There Are Only, What, Nine Or 10 Major Sponsors of Sport?There are only, what, nine or 10 major sponsors of sport in SA? The big banks and Sasol, Telkom, Vodacom, MTN and SAB? They do it because it serves their commercial interests. My advice to all of them though is to consider getting out while they're ahead. Sooner or later an issue will arise that will cause them to reconsider spending millions on a sport and it'll be promising enough political territory for Julius Malema to step in and make their lives hell.

When that time comes, there'll be nowhere to hide. The government is too scared of him, so it won't help. Civil society can't do much because Malema has drunken bully boys to intimidate you if you disagree with him.

Wind back a little. Athletics SA (ASA) boss Leonard Chuene admits he lied when he said he didn't know Caster Semenya had undergone gender tests before going to Berlin and winning her 800m gold medal. He says he did it to protect her.

But he also says the team doctor had warned him to remove her from the race. This is the same doctor who attends President Jacob Zuma , so you would assume he is a rational man of considerable judg ment. Chuene ignored him. To protect Semenya?

The ASA board is backing Chuene against calls for him to step down. To do that they have to believe that he took both decisions to protect Semenya -- ignoring the doctor's advice and , then, lying about the tests when the thing the doctor feared became an issue. If you believe Chuene on both counts, then you live beyond reason in the matter.

So, then Malema, one of the people Chuene lied to, forgives him and calls for Chuene's enemies to be smitten. It appears to be a black thing, but that may just be a cloak. Malema doesn't lead a transparent life, so we don't know if he's in this for himself. It's hard to believe he's in it for the country.

For when Nedbank , which has for years become dismayed at the quality of the athletics under the ASA banner that it sponsors, decides to withdraw its sponsorship, Malema calls for a nationwide boycott of the bank to force it to withdraw its decision.

But you can't boycott a bank a little bit, so we have to presume Malema intends to shut it down. That's right, break Nedbank. You would not be able to raise interest rates high enough to save the rand if that were to happen.

Can you imagine the consequences? Can President Zuma? Because the government he leads is already so at odds with itself it is hard to see where support for the financial system would come from. Trevor Manuel ? Sorry, no. He's under the whip from Cosatu, and if Malema started on him he'd be very alone.

Nedbank has little choice now but to stand its ground. We should all become customers, though business is normally weak-kneed in the face of political threat and I would not be surprised soon to read that it is "talking" to the Youth League. I hope not.

I don't believe Malema has the ability to organise a boycott anyway, and he quickly walks away from issues that don't give him rapid traction. Like nationalising the mines. And he's a baby too -- taken to court over insulting remarks about women, he pleaded ignorance of the law instead of standing up for what he said. It is time he was taken on.

Worst of all was a meeting of athletes concerned about the future of their sport under ASA direction and which was broken up by Malema and Chuene supporters, some drunk, on Saturday.

There was a picture in Rapport yesterday of one of them sticking his quivering, threatening finger into the face of one of the organisers, herself a national athlete.

It is reminiscent of the early Nazi party, when groups of its young thugs roamed Germany beating up opponents. Fascism is often born wearing a revolutionary hat.

These guys are out of control, book-burners in the making. They laugh off lies, truth and reason. Even traffic fines. They make no coherent contribution to national debate or policy formulation. They are a tiger the ANC has by the tail. Students of politics will one day marvel at how the ANC could have been so weak and self-destructive as to let this happen.

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