It's time Heyneke Meyer was replaced with Julius Malema

Jeremy Gordin says only Juju has the leadership skills and charisma to rescue the Boks

If you watched that embarrassment of an alleged ruby match between the Springboks and All Blacks on Saturday, you'll have realized that Heyneke Meyer has no idea of what to do.

I could tell him. Morné Steyn has got to go. Worse, something's happened to little Francois Hougaard. He used to be a born playmaker, a brilliant one, and now he's been stuck on the wing where he never sees the ball anyway.

And in truth, and even though I don't much care for Ruan Pienaar (he box kicks like a man who's never been near a box in his life), Hougaard wasn't shaping at scrumhalf anyway. Maybe he has some domestic troubles or something.

It's grows worse. Francois Steyn never passes the ball and is an oaf. Zane Kirchner needs to go. And Jean de Villiers should have been put out of his misery years ago. Instead, Meyer makes him captain, which De Villiers seems to think is like being posted to the truth commission. He runs around playing nicely-nicely with everyone. Be a man, be a Seffrican rugby captain. Give Richie McCaw a kick in the knackers. But do it off camera.

Anyway, point is that this is not going to get better soon. As Meyer natters endlessly into his walkie-talkie, he looks as though he's emerging from a tear gas cloud. He's bamboozled, confused. What are we going to do?

We need to find someone who can pull the country from the brink, a really good coach. I'm talking about leadership. Leadership is where it's at.

For example, isn't there some sort of initiative called Lead SA, led by the frontline citizens at Primedia Broadcasting and Independent Newspapers? This enterprise recognizes that "there are millions of ordinary South Africans who continually seek to do the right thing for themselves, for their families and for their country."

The Primedia impetus is pushed by a publicity hound called Yusuf Abramjee who also has some connection with the Pretoria Press Club which he calls the National Press Club. Independent got involved when Moegsien Williams was at the helm of the Star etc. But then Moegs grew a bietjie moeg and went to join his buddy Naaaaz Howa and the Guppy Guptas.

So I don't think Lead SA is an option. We need to think out of the box, as Naaaaz used to say.

Okay, in October 1973, when General Ariel "Arik" Sharon, a fat fellow with an eye for an elegant female limb (what was her name again? oh yeah, Condoleezza Rice), a lisp (would you believe it?), and a knowledge of how to deal with unruly locals, when he crossed the Suez canal and, disobeying his orders, failed to establish a beachhead and instead set off into Egypt to give the Gyppos a drubbing - one of his aides-de-camp said to him, "Geez, Arik, they're gonna fire you from Zahal (the Israel Defence Force)."

And Sharon answered: "Who gives a shit? I'd join up under another name."

Now who, in recent days, said something similar?

Yesterday uJuju had his mojo working and he told some journalists that he intended to re-apply for his party membership. He said he was confident his ANC branch in Seshego would not decline his application. "My branch has been inviting me to meetings of members and supporters," he said. And this he said, very calmly, the day after he was kicked out of Marikana - barred from the Wonderkop Stadium by the pigs.

There's our answer. We need to initiate a campaign to have Malema appointed coach of the Boks. It's the only opportunity of tugging the country back from the edge. He's the only one with the leadership skills and charisma.

I think we've been giving uJuju a bad deal. Why was he at the stadium on Monday? He wants to do the right thing for all of us, especially the poor people of South Africa, whom he understands in the marrow of his being, as you and I do not. All he wanted to do was pop into a gathering of miners who were having a little chat at, as I said, the Wonderkop Stadium in Marikana.

Once there, I'm certain Juju merely wanted to lead SA, as it were, by explaining that, say, President Jacob Zuma can't possibly have miners' interests at heart if he's mainly focused on marriages to well-fed ladies.

Or perhaps Juju might have mentioned that the portly fellows from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), who spend their days in meeting rooms rather than underground, drilling into the steel-hard rock, probably don't have the workers' wage interests as a number one priority.

Maybe Juju also wanted to chinwag about demagogues. For example, did you hear what Blade Nzimande said at the Cosatu conference? "Unlike some of the middle classes in other parts of the world who have joined workers in protest against neo-liberal capitalism, our middle class, especially its white sections, has turned its venom against the ANC government, including [This has included?] racist attitudes rearing their ugly head anew, especially through the internet."

I think Comrade Blade was talking about you guys on Politicsweb (except for Dot of course).

He continued a little later: "Whilst liberals will form a new NGO on a variety of matters where they oppose government, they have formed no NGO to fight against the brutality against farm workers; nor are there new NGOs formed to fight the scourge of labour brokers by liberals. They opportunistically seek alliances with the working class in order to advance elite interests, embarrass the ANC government, but tell the working class to go jump when it comes to challenging established capitalist interests."

Otherwise, not much demagoguery there. Nor much from Cosatu's Zwelinzima Vavi - who specialises in discussing Palace Politics (his phrase for ANC presidential politics) at the expense of workers' issues.

So, would there have been anything wrong about little Julie debating these matters with the miners? Don't we have freedom of speech and assembly in this country?

Clearly Malema is a gentle sort of person as well. Okay, once he lost his temper with a pesky foreign journalist from some minor news-gathering operation called the BBC. uJuju called him "a bloody agent" and a ‘bastard" and had him kicked out of the youth league press conference.

But consider how brilliantly Malema turned the other cheek on Monday afternoon. "Arrest me if you want to ... you can do whatever you want," he said to the police officers barring him from going into the stadium. These are the wise words of someone intent on assisting the workers and leading SA.

Of course things are a little stressful for Little Julie at the minute. He says, for example, that the Zuma government intends to off him. Actually I'm surprised, given some of the things he's said about Zuma, that he's still around. If I were he, I'd watch out on that long straight road to Polokwane; lot of accidents on that road. But, look, it's all a matter of foresight. He did say he was prepared to die for Zuma; well, could be that his time has come.

We would, though, if Little Julie makes it to the coaching spot - and I think the SA Rugby Union should seriously consider it - we would have to help him with cutting his press releases.

Have you seen the one here on Politicsweb, titled "A death warrant has been issued against us"? Jeez, brevity being the soul of wit is not a concept that appeals to Little Julie, is it? Never mind: we want him for coach. No surrender! No retreat! Viva!
