Malema vs the Narrative
#SoBasicallyZA, the tl;dr is: a court said "guilty" and "5 years" and then immediately said "jk lol, come back in half a decade for the appeal."
Here's the thing for my fellow youth who think parliament is just a screaming match for old people with red berets:
Seems to me this case isn't really about a gun fired in 2018. If it was just about that, it would've been settled in a traffic court. This is about the cold war between the state and the eff's brand of disruption. It's about proving that the establishment can touch the "untouchable" commander in chief.
It's giving kafkaesque performance art.
Malema needs the state to reject him to validate his existence. The state needs malema to break rules to validate its authority. They are trapped in a toxic symbiotic relationship and we are the audience forced to buy popcorn.
A scary part is that, the threats to the prosecutor. We can joke about "free juju" memes all day, but when the people who enforce the law start getting doxxed and threatened for doing their job (even if you think the job was politically motivated), we inch closer to a place where only the loudest, scariest voice in the room matters. And as a certified quiet kid on this app, that's not the vibe.
If you ask me, he's not going anywhere. the merch will still sell. The rallies will still be loud. And 2029 is going to be a movie. This is just the trailer.