inside politics

A fun, very brief look at the EFF’s staggering dog hypocrisy. Some of Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu’s favourite dog quotes, and why the EFF is an Animal Farm in more ways than one.

Who let the EFF dogs out

By: Gareth van Onselen
Follow @GvanOnselen
3 July 2024

In a recent interview, denying the possibility the DA would abandon the KwaZulu-Natal coalition, which excludes MK and the EFF, DA Federal Chairperson Helen Zille said, “We are not going to say the people of KZN can be thrown to the dogs”.

This prompted some fairly typical EFF responses. Floyd Shivambu tweeted a video of Zille and said, “Hebanna! Dogs?”. Dali Mpofu tweeted, “Calling lawfully registered political parties voted by the majority of Africans in KZN ‘dogs’??”. Many of the EFF faithful took up the chant online.

Julius Malema did not say anything about the Zille dog metaphor, presumably because he didn’t want to distract from the impact of the tweet he had just shared, calling Eyewitness News reporter Tshidi Madia, a “useless Pig who needs to go gym”.

Either that, or the fact that Malema – as ever with the world’s most hypocritical politician – has himself made extensive use of “dog” and “dogs” as metaphor and insult alike.

One of the more prominent was in July 2022, when he said, “this country is in the hands of dogs, and the dogs must be beaten until the owner comes out”. 

Other occasions include, November 2016, when he claimed Ace Magashule had, “sent out his dogs to catch me”; November 2018, when he said Pravin Gordhan, “is a dog of white monopoly capital”; July 2022, when he complained, “our country is sold to the dogs”; and January 2023 when he pleaded, “Let’s all rise to defend our country; let’s reclaim it from the dogs”.

Floyd Shivambu has made fairly extensive use of the term too. In March 2019, for example, he suggested parliament’s deputy chair, Soloman Tsenoli, “must be removed like a dog”, and in September 2022, he declared the ANC was, “leading this country to the dogs right now!”

Mpofu, concluded his recent tweet on Zille by saying, “Imagine (the fake public outrage) if she was black……”.

No need to imagine.

In closing, just to say, not quite sure why the dog metaphor is so triggering for the EFF. Among other creatures Malema has evoked, are lizards (“let’s remain focused and not entertaining lizards”), snakes (“We are burning the snake called the ANC”) cockroaches (“You have put a cockroach in Cabinet” (of Zille)), rats (“(journalists) suffer from the mind of a rat”), wolves, vultures, hyenas, sheep and even donkeys (of Zuma’s legal wrangling: “desperate moves by a dying donkey”).

The EFF is an Animal Farm in more ways than one. And has been for some time.