On Ndlozi’s birthday, Malema shares memory of him as an inspirational kid

EFF leader Julius Malema reminded us of a video that captured many last year when archive SABC footage was released of a 17- or 18-year-old Mbuyiseni Ndlozi being interviewed on Morning Live.

Malema used a still photo from the interview of Ndlozi as a school pupil to wish him and call him a “good example to the black child”.

Ndlozi turned 33 today. Malema wrote: “Happy birthday black child, we are proud of u. Stay focused & avoid obvious mistakes bcoz u represent the future of our country, continue being a good example to the black child. Parents must use u as an example when reprimanding their children…bare o phala ke @MbuyiseniNdlozi.”

Ndlozi was quick to thank him too.

The still frame comes from the clip you can watch below of Ndlozi in 2002 when he won a Young Communicators Award.

Speaking on SABC 2 Morning Live with Tracy Going, the young Ndlozi said he was honoured and thanked the Lord for the award. He still sounds much the same in his delivery today, 13 years later, and is even more self-assured and confident now than he was as a young man.

The interview focused on how the younger Ndlozi had become “proficient in English” despite it not being his mother tongue. Ndlozi said he’d worked hard to win first prize in the competition and explained that he was learning Sesotho in addition to his native isiZulu.

When he told Going that “association brings assimilation”, she had to do a double take, and Ndlozi then explained it to her: by constantly speaking English with other people more fluent than yourself, you can assimilate a language.

To win the award, Ndlozi had given a prepared speech entitled: What’s life without a purpose?

When asked by Going to explain what he had said on the unprepared topic of light at the competition, Ndlozi said: “Light chases darkness out of people’s lives. If our mothers and fathers can be our light, we’ll have somewhere to go … maybe like walking in a dark tunnel … light gives direction in life.”

His advice and motivation to other learners was that practice makes perfect.

“They might laugh at you, but try to speak English.”

He disagreed, though, that speaking English was a prerequisite for success; having a purpose in life, he said, was far more essential.

“Success, I think is … you’ve made it … it doesn’t matter in what field. [As long as you have] purpose.”

The young Ndlozi said he would use his R10,000 prize (decent money in 2002) to study psychology and look towards defeating the “state of mind” that is poverty, which he believed was holding back poor people in South Africa.

“Poverty is all in the mind. I believe in the statement in the Bible that says, ‘As a man thinks, so he is.’ If your mind thinks in a poor way [you trap yourself] mentally.

“People who think in a positive way always succeed. I’m very much positive.”

He received a PhD in politics from Wits University last year.

Watch the clip below to see him in his interview in 2002.