Can I see African National Congress (ANC) Youth League president Julius Malema’s greedy accumulation of wealth purely as a corruption of the human heart, without worrying whether that corruption speaks to my own fate?

Is it possible that the only thing absolute about each of us is our desire to escape — to escape the grinding realities of our birth, to escape the working class, yes, to escape the middle class, to finally align our reality with the world of our dreams, living life unbound by the shackles of limitations?

I can no more chastise Malema for his inconsistencies  criticising Naledi Pandor for her polished accent, criticising the wine-sipping, steak-munching black men who seem to have forgotten their ANC roots, heaping scorn on the youth development officers for locating themselves in suburbia  than see his behaviour as a reflection of my own dilemmas, even when he lives in suburbia, drives million-rand cars, wears a R25000 watch (gift or not) while the poor could add years to their lives on that kind of money.

Is it possible that nobody really cares about the poor, even the poor themselves? Is it possible that Malema’s escape only reflects their own wishes, that had they been shown the same golden escape door, they would have walked right in without the slightest hesitation, without even looking back at those they are leaving behind?

Yes, I may accept that Malema’s desire to escape his past is no different from my own, that his dilemma — to at once purport to be the voice of the poor but not to belong with them — is no different from my own. But I do not accept his inconsistencies, even if they are my own. I reject his narrow interests and personal indulgences. I reject the idea that he must be given the pull of respectability while the poor he claims to represent live without dignity day after day.

A door that remains shut to the poor was opened to Malema and he walked right in, joining the winners’ circle that is forever small, leaving it shut behind him, leaving the poor right at that door, leaving the message loud and clear to the poor: “If you are poor, you are on your own.”