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The ANC Youth League has yet again displayed how incoherent, contradictory and out of touch it is with the nature of our democratic state and its role in it. Even while refusing to repent for calling for the vice chancellor of the University of the Free State to be ‘shot and killed', the Youth League has now performed a sizeable u-turn by proclaiming Prof. Jansen to be ‘one of us'. Now Julius Malema can't even decide what he wants Prof. Jansen to do about the Reitz Four. In one newspaper this morning he is quoted as saying that the Youth League is still "going to force [Jansen] to change his decision". In another, he says "we are not going to oppose the four students going back". Talk about incoherence. This is textbook ANC Youth League. There is absolutely no semblance of consistency, no rationale for its statements. It simply exists as a platform for giant egos to draw attention to themselves. How else do you explain the recent proclamation by Floyd Shivambu that the ANC Youth League is the best youth party in the world? The truth - in spite of what certain people in the ANC seem to think - is that there could be nothing less Mandela-like than pontificating about your own innate superiority. The ANCYL knows no boundaries in its behaviour, has no concept of autonomy, and believes it is this omnipresent force that can freely interfere anywhere and anyhow it likes. This is wrong, political parties have a particular mandate and they should stick to them. The Democratic Alliance welcomes the fact that Prof. Jansen has pledged to redress the ‘racist culture of the university', but the ANC Youth League's role in this mess is disconcerting, and they need to apologise immediately, as an organisation, for their array of offensive remarks about the UFS vice chancellor.