The race straw is easy for the EFF to grasp

The EFF is protesting, loudly, that it was not racist in its attack on Treasury deputy director-general Ismail Momoniat in parliament this week. It referred to the experienced civil servant as a “non-African” and claimed he was undermining “Africans” in his department, including the minister and director-general.

If it is indeed true that Floyd Shivambu did not have a racist bone in his body when he made those comments – as the EFF insists – then why was it necessary to refer to the race of Momoniat?

Surely, if the complaint was about his “undermining” of others, as EFF senior leader Dali Mpofu claimed it was, why was skin colour relevant?

We have a simple answer to those questions: The EFF is increasingly grasping at populist straws, egged on by its supporters in the echo chamber of social media, following the ANC’s house cleaning under President Cyril Ramaphosa. And race is an easy straw at which to grasp.

It is easy to blame “the others” – people of a different colour, religion, or tribe – for all the ills you perceive as befalling “your” people.

It’s not quite so easy to present logical, visionary policies to change the country in which we live.

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