They used to call him The Mouth. Big, black, superbly physically fit, the quintessential athlete—but a dud at human relations. That was Muhammad Ali, world champion boxer of a bygone era.

He earned the nickname “The Mouth” through his deliberate courting of publicity touting himself with the oft-spouted phrase that became his mantra, “I am the greatest!”

Julius Malema is big and black, and though he lacks the athleticism of Muhammad Ali, he sure does have a mouth to match that which was once let loose by the now aging ex-boxer, sadly caught in the grip of Parkinson’s disease.

This man, Malema, has done more to undermine any prospect of advancement in post-apartheid race relations in South Africa than any single one of his political compatriots.

He has gone out of his way to threaten white farmers with words inciting black youth to take over their farms at the end of a gun. Arraigned before the courts multiple times for his outlandishly racist hate speech, deliberately designed to create tension between black and white communities in South Africa, the failure of the courts to obtain a conviction is testimony to the corruption of the nation’s legal system. Charges laid against him have included allegedly deliberately inciting racial hatred against whites, specifically his singing in public of the African National Congress (anc) militant hymn, “Kill the Boer.”

But Malema’s latest effort is aimed at elements within his own party ranks. Malema has deliberately provoked those considering any opposition to him and his party into a fearful defensive position by his public taunts in advance of the anc’s youth wing elective conference, due to take place in two weeks.

Accused of losing fringe votes from liberal elements of the white community, Malema mastered the art of double-speak and revisionist South African history in one fell swoop. He was recently quoted as declaring that “the anc had also liberated white people from apartheid, adding that they now had access to the beauty of the continent. … ‘We freed them [whites] and we will continue protecting them,’ he said” (South African Press Association, June 4). Even the most simple-minded observer of South African history over the past few decades can recognize that such an outlandish statement is a deliberate reversal of the facts.

Malema has publicly called for the anc youth to inject more militancy into South Africa’s working class, while at the same time stating in court that militancy rendered the perpetrators of no consequence politically! This is one dangerous man, prepared to twist the truth to his own advantage in typical Communist fashion. No wonder, particularly when one realizes that his anc teachers were themselves taught by the likes of rabid Communist and Russian stool pigeon Joseph Slovo.

The facts are that the “rainbow nation” is today a far cry from the status of general wealth and relative internal security that it enjoyed at its peak as a member of the British Commonwealth and Empire of a bygone era.

Gifted by God to the descendants of ancient Israel, developed under the influence of both Boer and British to First World status, then given away to the anc/Communist cabal in 1994, South Africa is showing signs of rising internal strife as the likes of Julius Malema stir hatred against their benefactors. The end result will not be pretty. This once great nation will prove to be easy pickings for those two great marts that dominate the global economy—China and the European Union—as they compete for control of its vast natural resources. Your Bible prophesies this (Isaiah 23).

The great swelling words of the likes of Julius Malema may yet move young blacks to militancy in South Africa. If it does, who will be to blame? Will it be their former apartheid masters, or their replacements—those who replaced a hated apartheid regime? It’s beginning to look like it will be those who took over the government of a veritable jewel of a country, promising so much in 1994, but having given so little since taking political office—except to themselves.

Read the reality of the past, present and future of South Africa from the perspective of inerrant Bible prophecy in our book The United States and Britain in Prophecy. You might also find that our booklet South Africa in Prophecy sheds some light on just how the once most greatly blessed nation of South Africa became caught up in its present bind, slouching toward the brink of great impending social disruption in the wake of impending economic collapse, a collapse that increasingly threatens the whole globe.

That the signs of such collapse herald humankind’s finally being ushered into a great era of international peace between all peoples, regardless of color, creed and culture, might be hard to imagine. But that is exactly what your Bible prophesies.