Are you praying for Julius Malema?

by Letters Editor · November 10, 2011

From Tony Nicholls, George:

This week in our parish, the Ecclesia groups meet to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit, who comes to us from the Father through the Son. And recently I was privileged to attend an address by Fiona Forde, about her new biography of ANC Youth League president Julius Malema, An Inconvenient Youth.

For me the talk she gave us and those parts of her book I have read so far are not so much about Mr Malema alone, but also the well-nigh catastrophic state of the politics that is running/ruining this country, and the Kairos moment we are moving into, and the watershed year that lies ahead of us all, starting now.
We believe that the Holy Spirit draws each and every Christian onwards, individually and together within the Church. I believe that what is happening now in South Africa constitutes a message for all Christians, to wake up and realise that all is not well, and that there are things in our land� that will have to be fixed by courageous hearts, filled by the Holy Spirit of God, sooner than later.

I end with a quote from this book, which should be read by all leaders of all Christian churches in the land.

In the forward to Ms Forde�s book, Achille Mbembe writes: �…to stem the rising tide [of raging youth], technocratic sermons on �service delivery� and �decent jobs� will not suffice. Techno-managerial reason will have to be supplemented by the rehabilitation of the political itself.�

He continues: �It is the widespread failure to confront these fundamental dilemmas that has created the moral void in which Julius Malema is swimming. The shock troops he is assembling before the final push are replete with those imprisoned in shack life, vulnerable subjects our unequal social order keeps ejecting, who are condemned to undertake the labour of social mourning amid crushing poverty.�

An Inconvenient Youth will shock the reader rigid, and if so let us pray together for our land and in particular for one Julius Malema.