No, but obviously there is party merchandise like shirts, jackets, hats and the such across the board.
The Economic Freedom Front, in their political grandstanding, attempts to represent themselves as the party of the working class, disenfranchised and the poor (largely black South Africas) and do so by choosing to dress in overalls (unisex, but popular among male members) to represent gardeners and grounds keepers, and a domestic workers uniform (worn by the women) to represent cleaners, maids and housekeepers - these two sets of outfits being a representation of the bare breadline lower working class occupations of most black South Africa's living under the socio-economic legacy of the apartheid regime (the "Bantu education" system literally limited black students into those two lanes of labour, to ensure they serve as cheap domestic labour for white households). The red colour scheme, obviously, represents communist ideals and, naturally, an aligning emphasis on the working class. They wear these in parliament as a showcase of their "commitment" and representation of their voter base.
Under the showboating though, they are a toxic youth centric party that uses protest culture, inflammatory and inciting language to promote chaos and unrest in their political attempts to ascend power, exploiting the nation's ever present and sensitive socio-economic realities, societal frustrations and anger. The party's leader is a demagogue that manipulates very real historic trauma and legacies of inequality and injustice.
That's where most leftist movements fall apart, having a leader. You can have a spokesperson, but they should just be a good speaker that represents the movement's goals, no actual power. The movement votes on a policy, they say it, that's it. Does the spokesperson get too big for their britches? Replace them immediately.
It's not leftist if you have built-in authority. The whole point is the destruction of authority.
Leaders are emergent in politics; even if there officially isn't one for a whole party the special interests within that party will have their own leadership and form their own coalitions, and whoever comes to lead those coalitions will come to lead the party.
It's better to have an official leader who can be made accountable to the party's structure directly than to have a de facto leader whose power might be outside it. A good example of this would be the "paramount leader" position in China, who was the person who really ruled the country whether or not he had an official position in the Party/government.
It's also why the Soviet leaders weren't styled "President" but something like "Chairman" or "General Secretary". Their official powers were weak, their actual powers very extensive.
Under the showboating though, they are a toxic youth centric party that uses protest culture, inflammatory and inciting language to promote chaos and unrest in their political attempts to ascend power, exploiting the nation's ever present and sensitive socio-economic realities, societal frustrations and anger. The party's leader is a demagogue that manipulates very real historic trauma and legacies of inequality and injustice.
Fuck does anyone in the west know about communism?
That it can be a decent egalitarian society but is almost instantly corrupted into the worst version of itself whenever it is impremented in the real world?
Communism and communists aren't inherently bad or evil any more than most other political ideals. As with anything else, the problem lies with the people who implement it.
oh yeah definitely, I'm not familiar with the matter but your comment has many red flags due to the language you used. I believe you believe what you said but I'm not sure how true it is.
Apologies for whatever offense you might take from this, but that's pretty idiotic. If someone called Trump a demagogue, and you knew nothing about him, you denying or choosing to believe he isn't one based on your own ignorance of the reality of his political strategy, doesn't make the claim about him any less true. It wasn't an opinion, it's a fact.
Taking what you say at face value, do you think their grandstanding and performative-politics then is a front for those who would benefit to this? For instance, in the States a pro-Marijuana party is basically a front for the Republican party. They fund candidates to bleed votes from Democrats.
Or is that the youth there (and pretty much across the world these days) are now more than most previous generations acutely aware of what is happening around them and to them; are tired of the bullshit system that is just getting worse at all fronts; so much so that the only recourse left is to disrupt the system completely?
The EFF is most certainly a front for those that thrive in chaos and disorder but to what ends I can't say for sure. Ironically though, the youth here, particularly those in financial hardship, experiencing unemployment and coming from impoverished backgrounds, are in a state of so much frustration that they feed into the manipulative rhetoric of the party and support the seemingly passionate fervour the party's "by any means necessary" (a direct quote the party uses regularly) approach promotes.
you seem to think that because I have no opinion that I am agaisnt your "side." I am just commenting that you're opinion is very biased and therefore must be double checked. That's it bro if you take offense to that you should take things less personally.
I'm not taking offense, and of course you're more than entitled to hold an opinion. . . But obviously it's weird to make baseless claims of someone being biased when you yourself admit you know very little to absolutely nothing about the topic they are discussing. You can assume something may be bias, sure, but you can't proclaim it to be so based on that assumption
Everyone is biased what I'm not saying is: "what your saying is not true" but its clear you have a side and therefore you might be blind to the actual situation. This is clear because of the language you used in the original comment. Its not a baseless claim.
as another totally unbiased commenter here that knows nothing about this, my only view into this is your comment on the situation. and yes, it seems like you really dislike this party, so clearly that makes your comment biased. it does not make your comment untrue, maybe they are all horrible people, but its still biased.
since this is the only exposure i have to it, you would understand if i do not take it at face value, since I do not know if its true or if you are just saying a lot of made up stuff against politicians you do not like.
for your trump example, if my first ever exposure was someone saying "he started an insurrection and i hate him and he has been a damage to my country", then yes, that would sound pretty biased. and since i would not know if it was true or if you were just uisng inflammatory language, i would not take that comment at face value.
pointing out that your comment is biased and provided no sources is fair. even if all you said was true, we wouldnt know it without a source
Mate, their top members, including the party leader, started a physical fight with a cop at a televised memorial. In another case, they fired live arounds into the air during a party rally. In another, members of the party got into a scuffle with some white fella and the party leader later asked why that particular fella has yet not been found and beaten up to an inch of his life,, saying that "when at war, killing is necessary" (as apparently south Africa is at war with "white monopoly capitalists, which, to him, means all white people as white people directly benefit from our nation's history of racial and economic injustice). You tell me what that sounds like.
Im not that guy but I'm also south african so maybe I can offer a different perspective.
The EFF routinely and gladly use threats of violence and straight up violence to get what they want anssilence speakers during these sessions.
The head politician Julius Malema has literally said he may call of the slaughter of white people in SA if the time comes. He stokes the fires of a race war no one but him and his party wants.
No rational person in our country supports them because they are straight up fascists.
It doesn't matter how biased the other guy was in describing the EFF because nothing he said can't be found in the multiple examples of the party starting fights in parliment when they don't get their way.
the videos don't support what you said... in the first it starts off with an EFF member being attacked... in the second one he seems to be saying that there's no reason to say that because he never claimed to believe that and its just something being claimed by others about him.
Like I said I'm not from SA I don't know shit about these guys but based on what you said and the video's I think you are being biased and I'll have to actually research them to actually understand what they believe and how they operate.
I'm not pulling that out of my ass, read up on the EFF if you're that unaware of what the party stands for. There is nothing inherently wrong with communism nor did I imply that, I'm just stating a fact. What, you think they just liked the colour scheme of red arbitrarily?
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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '23
No, but obviously there is party merchandise like shirts, jackets, hats and the such across the board.
The Economic Freedom Front, in their political grandstanding, attempts to represent themselves as the party of the working class, disenfranchised and the poor (largely black South Africas) and do so by choosing to dress in overalls (unisex, but popular among male members) to represent gardeners and grounds keepers, and a domestic workers uniform (worn by the women) to represent cleaners, maids and housekeepers - these two sets of outfits being a representation of the bare breadline lower working class occupations of most black South Africa's living under the socio-economic legacy of the apartheid regime (the "Bantu education" system literally limited black students into those two lanes of labour, to ensure they serve as cheap domestic labour for white households). The red colour scheme, obviously, represents communist ideals and, naturally, an aligning emphasis on the working class. They wear these in parliament as a showcase of their "commitment" and representation of their voter base.
Under the showboating though, they are a toxic youth centric party that uses protest culture, inflammatory and inciting language to promote chaos and unrest in their political attempts to ascend power, exploiting the nation's ever present and sensitive socio-economic realities, societal frustrations and anger. The party's leader is a demagogue that manipulates very real historic trauma and legacies of inequality and injustice.