Jujus great-great uncle was also a troublemaker... Julius Malema isn’t the first man with that name to harass and rattle his opponents and cause a stir in court. In the 1880s Chief Malema of a clan of the Babirwa (a North Sotho speaking group) was a pain in the neck of Chief Khama III of Botswana (then Bechuanaland) who wanted to impose his rule on the Babirwa. Malema’s people were later forcefully removed from their land and Bangwato (Khama’s group) governors appointed to rule the area. Malema fled to the then Transvaal and in 1922 became the first chief to take a kgosi to court. But the authorities refused him permission to be represented by a South African lawyer, Emmanuel Gluckmann, and he lost. I don’t know if Julius is a direct descendant of the old chief, but descendants of his Babirwa do still live in the Seshego region of Limpopo, where Julius was born, as well as in south-western Zimbabwe and in Botswana. SeBirwa and sePedi are close dialects of North Sotho, also called Sesotho sa Leboa.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 08:21:15 +0000
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