A monster of my making ...
I was disappointed because this was a sad caricature of the Patrick Mosiuoa “Terror” Lekota I have known and respected from UDF days through to his days with the ANC’s southern Natal region, my stomping ground at the time.
We know Lekota’s conquests. He earned his stripes as a leader when Malema was still a (bad?) dream in his father’s mind.
The Lekota of the ’80s and ’90s, stationed as he was in volatile KwaZulu-Natal, could speak truth to power, crossing swords with Buthelezi et al, but with due consideration of what his utterances might do to the fragile relations between the ANC and IFP.
The ANC today is a fractured organisation, and to have a Malema in each faction is not going to help things at all.
I have to concur with Xolela Mangcu when he says: “Surely, there is something wrong with the violence and militarism of the new ANC. I am just not sure if a highly compromised Lekota is the person to swing the ANC against it.”
Fred Khumalo | Lekota and Malema: spot the difference
"We cannot allow elements that are reversing the revolution to destroy what we have built … if we think something is not right, we must say so to each other," he said.
And that's pretty much where Lekota is at now.
If there's a parapet, he's likely to be one of the first to stick his head over it - often in the role of flak-catcher or lightning rod. He may be performing the same role now.
Gaye Davis | Terror is not afraid
While I have enormous sympathy for Mosiuoa 'Terror' Lekota — unlike so many of our latter-day commentators, I do not regard him a 'lightweight', I tend to agree with Fred Khumalo's view of our former Defence Minister's divorce from the now gutless ANC (Pallo Jordan's been sitting on the fence so long, he's split his personality).
Let it be noted, however, that I do so through the words of Gaye Davis, a journalist who — having earned her stripes in the frontline of the 80s and 90s, commands my unreserved respect (I've yet to read or listen to Gaye and disagree with her). Respecting Lekota — and delivering unvarnished fact, she moves Khumalo's assessment a step forward, framing Lekota's role in its appropriate context.
No matter his faults, Terror knows no fear and continues 'speaking truth to power'. Solomon Mahlangu, Matthew Goniwe and generations of South Africans did not die so that we might one day see the Freedom Charter trampled into the mud of Polokwane.
Lekota reminded well over a thousand people of this in Langa yesterday. They raised high the roofbeams at his performance (for, let's not kid ourselves, that is what politicians deliver). It was vintage stuff and it was good. But it was not publicised and Terror did not have the decency to pick up the phone and give me a shout. For this reason alone, he has shot his bolt. In a country where the president of the ANC will meet one on one with a disaffected voter, I demand a personal apology.
"No one is bigger than the ANC."
Jacob Zuma
