– the literary equivalent of sex with a clown –
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My column for Wednesday, 8 September, is out.
You know what to do.
Subscribe monthly or even pay for just a single edition. That’s R7.70. You can’t even get a beer for that.
Subscribe here: https://thecitizen.pressreader.com
or here: https://citizen.co.za/bundle-subscriptions/
Congratulations on officially achieving the rank of Most Hated Man in South Africa. This is no easy feat in a country like ours. Coming in second is Jacob Zuma. In fact, it’s almost too close to call. In the interests of fairness, I think you and Jacob should share the honour, like you did the Scandinavian prize with that other black guy.
What tipped the scales in your favour is that you are now hated by people across the political and racial spectrum, whereas Jacob is hated by all white people and only some black people.
It wasn’t always this way. Until quite recently, you were only properly hated by white conservatives for selling out and giving the country to the communists. White liberals thought you were quite a good oke for releasing Mandela. Black people, on the other hand, didn’t think you should get any credit at all because they reckoned Mandela should never have been locked up by your people in the first place. Unreasonable, I know. But that’s darkies for you.
Then you went and said that apartheid wasn’t a crime against humanity. That was a bridge too far, even for the liberals. Suddenly you were no longer such a good oke. And if there were any black people who still thought you weren’t too bad, compared to, say, Hitler or Kim Jong-il, they turned against you, too.
I don’t really care what you think about apartheid. You became my personal hero when you had an affair with some or other Greek tart married to a shipping tycoon who helped fund the National Party. A friend of yours, I understand. He was basically paying you to shag his wife behind his back. Classy. The cherry on top, pardon my French, was when you waited until Valentine’s Day to announce your intention to trade your wife in for a younger model. That magnificent act of unparalleled evil completely overshadowed apartheid and boosted your ranking in the patriarchy.
Anyway. The bigger point is that in 1966 the UN General Assembly declared apartheid to be a crime against humanity. I was still too young to dispute this. For me, not being allowed to wee in my bed was a crime against humanity. You must have been in your late twenties then. Probably studying Dr Guido Landra’s Manifesto of Race and hitting on your brother’s girlfriends.
The next thirty years were spent clawing your way up the political ladder, hanging out with chums like John Vorster and PW Botha and making sure that separate development meant that the whities got the development and the darkies were kept separate. Fair enough. A policy is mos a policy.
Then Margaret Thatcher advised you to throw in the towel and you turned the country over to the communists – who turned out not to be communists after all. In 1998 a Truth and Reconciliation Report endorsed the UN position that apartheid was a crime against humanity and said you’d been a very naughty boy. You were understandably outraged, having only just discovered at the TRC that “rogue individuals” had for years been killing, incarcerating and torturing anyone who didn’t agree with your government’s notions of white supremacy.
At the time, you also said this: “I reject the contention that apartheid was a crime against humanity, notwithstanding the serious injustices which occurred and for which I have sincerely apologised.”
Flash forward 22 years to last Thursday. When I saw you and the Hellenic home-wrecker lurking in the peanut gallery in parliament awaiting our sloth-like leader’s blindly optimistic State of the Nation address, I suspected trouble could be brewing.
You had, after all, just days earlier said in an interview with the SABC that apartheid was not a crime against humanity. You must have known you were putting a match to a block of political Blitz.
But even so, when Kiddie Amin initiated his increasingly predictable Meow Meow Uprising, all eyes were on Pravin Gordhan. So it must have come as something of a shock when the jabbering infant in the red onesie pointed in your direction and shouted, “We have a murderer in the House!”
That couldn’t have been fun. Nobody wants to be called a killer on live television. At home around the braai, sure. But not in parliament.
In the good old days, it would have taken a single phone call to make the entire EFF leadership disappear overnight. I don’t know what torture methods you would use on them today. Give them Highland Queen instead of Johnnie Walker Blue? Make them wear denim shorts from Mr Price? Crocs instead of Ferragamo loafers?
I bet your trophy wife wasn’t keen on going in the first place. Women can sense these things, you know. You marry a nice prematurely balding guy who once led a vicious regime predicated on violence and racial superiority, you think twice before going out in public with him. Especially to the very place where apartheid was spawned and suckled. Talk about returning to the scene of the crime against humanity.
Of course you were upset. Who wouldn’t be? But where most men would go home, get drunk and take it out on their wives, you went home and, through your FW de Klerk Foundation, released a statement saying that fewer than five thousand people had been killed by security forces between 1960 and 1994. Your proud Boer heritage kicked in and you doubled down.
“The idea that apartheid was ‘a crime against humanity’ was, and remains, an ‘agitprop’ project initiated by the Soviets and their ANC/SACP allies to stigmatise white South Africans by associating them with genuine crimes against humanity …”
That might have been a bit of an oopsie. Then again, your defence of apartheid did succeed in uniting South Africans of all races. It’s usually only the Springboks who can do that. Sure, it united them in their hatred for you, but still. It’s the unity that’s important.
Later, Thabo Mbeki asked you what the hell were you thinking and you told him you hadn’t been aware of the UN convention. Not quite true, as it turns out, but then again you are getting on a bit and it’s easy to forget what you said in 1998. Anyway, Mbeki still can’t understand how a virus can cause a syndrome so don’t worry about him.
At the end of it all, you apologised and said that apartheid was, in fact, a crime against humanity and not, as you mistakenly imagined, a minor inconvenience. I can imagine how much that must have grated. Here you are, with the world’s top peace prize sitting on a crocheted doily above your fireplace, below the flying ducks, and you still have to say sorry for assuming that a system which dehumanised a mere forty million people wasn’t all that bad.
Patriots like you should never have to say sorry. Your father served as interim State President in 1975, for heaven’s sake. Okay, so it was only for nine days. He was the original 2-minute noodle. You were also the Minister of Mines and Energy for a year. Eskom was one of your responsibilities. Sooner or later, you’re going to be accused of having caused loadshedding.
If I were you, I’d get in early and apologise now.
It’s unlikely I was the only one suffering from a minor medical emergency last Sunday. Having tried all the regular remedies – aspirin, fried food, suicide – I dragged my shattered carcass off to the shop and bought a few cans of Coke.
I don’t usually drink this filth for political reasons, which, at this point in time, are a little hazy. I think it had to do with the bottlers in Columbia hiring paramilitary thugs to murder employees caught drinking Pepsi. Or something. I don’t know why I cared. I might have been going through my social justice warrior phase before discovering it doesn’t pay very well.
On Sunday I couldn’t have cared less if Coca-Cola turned out to be the official sponsor of the Trump family. I needed to dilute the massive amount of post-World Cup beer that had caused my blood to stream about as well as Telkom Wi-Fi on a rainy night in Diepsloot. Coke can adulterate, corrode or kickstart just about anything and it was my last shot.
I ripped the can open and guzzled it right there in the shop. There was a moment when everything went quiet. Like that scene when a bomb goes off in Saving Private Ryan. Instead of being stricken with temporary deafness, like Tom Hanks, I clutched my throat and, eyes swiveling wildly in my head, retched clumsily into a conveniently placed ornamental palm. Like Gary Busey in, well, real life.
I thought I’d been poisoned. It tasted as if the paramilitaries had spiked it. Once my internal organs calmed down, I inspected the can. “Plus Coffee” it said. And, in the event that one’s hangover was affecting one’s vision, in bigger letters, “Real Coffee From Brazil”. To make absolutely sure the customer knew what was happening, there was even a picture of coffee beans on the side. I didn’t notice any of this when I bought it because nobody in their right mind pauses to check if their Coke has been contaminated with anything other than the usual cola-related toxins.
What kind of crazy person would come up with such a terrible idea? This is not the work of a normal crazy person, that’s for sure. This is off the charts. Have people built up such a tolerance that they now need a caffeine boost with their sugar?
We have all, at one time or another, been exposed to children speeding on sugar in a confined space. I have been on long-haul flights with children who were given Coke to drink. They react as if they are being electrocuted. Now imagine them having the new Coffee-Coke twenty minutes into a thirteen-hour flight. They would kick the back of your seat so violently that you’d end up with a splintered coccyx and, a month after disembarking, a kidney transplant. The runty savages would be fighting among themselves to get into the cockpit and everyone in economy class would spend the night praying for engine failure.
My point is that people should just leave good enough alone. Remember that old slogan, Coke adds life? Okay, it doesn’t if you work for a bottling plant in Bogota. But for those of us far downstream of the production line, Coke has done its job adequately.
What would happen if someone had to drink a Klippies and Coffee-Coke? I shudder to think. Actually, I’ve been shuddering for three days. I wish it would stop.
I’m not the only one who doesn’t want things tampered with. Take Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi of the EFF, for instance. An educated and sensitive man, he was deeply conflicted when the Springboks won the World Cup. There are black and white players in the team, which meant he could only voice his support whenever a darkie had the ball. The moment it was passed to one of the neo-colonial, counter-revolutionary puppets of the West, he had to shout “Phansi amaBhunu!” or look away and pretend he hadn’t seen. It couldn’t have been easy for him. The final whistle must have been particularly awkward. Not everyone can make it clear that you’re cheering the black players only. You’d need a PhD in political science to pull that off.
Simultaneously angry, happy and sad, Ndlozi turned to Twitter and offered his congratulations to Siya Kolisi. The white players, he suggested, should get their congratulations from Prince Harry. The prince, who has made it abundantly clear that he has had quite enough of white people in general and his family in particular, was off drinking beer in the Boks’ changing room. Harry would have noted that Faf de Klerk, while possessing the instincts and agility of a Miniature Schnauzer, is developing a bit of a boep. Being a gentleman, he refrained from pointing and laughing.
Our benign president, Cyril Ramaphosa, is also encouraging change. He said we should do like Siya says and work together. That’s fine for Siya to say. His house is a hotbed of racial unity. Personally, I’ve only ever known blondes to be nothing but trouble. Brunettes, too. And redheads.
Comrade Ndlozi’s political doppelgänger down at the shallow end of the gene pool, Oberstfuhrer Steve Hofmeyr, offered to translate Cyril’s message. “Let the Siya injection make you numb so you don’t fight back when we grab your land from under your arse because you’re white.” Translated from the original Afrikaans, obviously.
Steve bravely left his land unguarded and went to a friend’s house to watch the final. He couldn’t watch at home because he destroyed his DStv decoder a few months ago. I can’t remember why. Perhaps because it was black.
So that’s the thing. We don’t want change in this country. Not really. If we did, we’d do like the Ecuadorians and Chileans and take to the streets in our millions and refuse to leave until someone did something to fix the economy. If Eskom started working and Jacob Zuma stopped appealing, we’d have nothing to complain about. We would be lost without our healthy sense of fear and loathing of those who look, think and talk differently to us.
#ImStaying because I can’t wait to see what Cyril doesn’t do next. I also want to feel what it’s like to live in a country that’s been accorded junk status by all three major ratings agencies. Not every nation can achieve it, you know. You have to really not work at it. So far it’s only two out of three. Hopes are pinned on Moody’s delivering the coup de grâce in three months’ time.
For now, though, let us link arms with the likes of Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, Irvin Jim and Helen Zille and go laughingly backwards into the future.
News that Julius Malema had banned certain media from attending EFF events reminded me of a letter I wrote to him a few months ago. I’m still waiting for a reply.
……………..
Dear Comrade Julius Malema the First, Commander-in-Chief of the Economic Freedom Fighters, Hero of the Poor, Prince of Pedis and Creator of the Revolutionary Onesie.
I see you have been having a spot of bother with reporters of the female variety. Join the club. Both my ex-wives were journalists and it was only the realisation that I would never again have another beer that stopped me from killing myself. That’s right. Alcohol saved my life.
I understand from the running dogs of the counter-revolutionary quasi-colonialist reactionary mainstream media that your most recent nemesis is a certain Karima Brown. To be honest, I can’t remember the reason you decided to broadcast her cellphone number to the ravening underclass, but I have no doubt she deserved it. How very dare she.
It must be said, though, that your strategy needs work. As a married man, you should know better than to make an angry woman even angrier. All women are angry all the time. Some simply disguise it better than others. This is something we have learnt to live with and it is a rookie mistake to deliberately infuriate them even more.
The Brown woman is now properly furious and would like nothing better than to see you sent to the Hague to spend the rest of your natural life in a tiny cell having your bottom interfered with by Charles Taylor.
Failing that, she wants to see the EFF removed from the ballot paper altogether. This takes the fight to a whole new level. It’s an old Cuban tactic perfected by Batista. This is a mistake. You are not a man who plays second Fidel to anyone.
If you really wanted to upset Ms Brown, you wouldn’t have tweeted her phone number to your shadow army. You would have ignored her. Women hate being ignored even more than they hate getting death threats.
By the way, are you aware that your second-in-command, Oberstfuhrer Shivambu, has only 783 000 followers on Twitter? This is a perilous situation, my friend. Don’t for one minute think he doesn’t envy your tally of 2.5 million. I’d keep a close eye on him. Not too close, though. He admits in his Twitter profile to being a heterodox. Quite frankly, I don’t care what he does behind closed doors but you might want to make sure you are fully dressed when he visits. You are an attractive man, Julius, and the sight of you with your shirt off might easily drive the most restrained heterodox to do something he will regret.
Oh, wait. I’ve just visited the internet to research heterodox porn and it seems I am mistaken.
A heterodox is someone who doesn’t conform with accepted standards or beliefs. I suppose he means it in the political renegade sense, although given the definition, a man with a fetish for clean-shaven sheep could just as easily call himself a heterodox.
Funnily enough, the word dox means “to publish private or identifying information about an individual on the internet, typically with malicious intent”.
While I am unfamiliar with Ms Brown’s sexual orientation, there is a good chance that what you did was dox a hetero. Small wonder that you and Floyd are so tight.
Your generously upholstered Oberstfuhrer also says in his bio that he is “blessed”. You might want to check this out. If he has been blessed by Pastor Lukau, it’s quite possible that your man is a zombie. Between you and me, I’ve always had my suspicions. There is something supernatural about his lumbering gait and hollow eyes. Then again, that’s me after a bottle of gin.
His bio ends with the words, “Todo por la revolución!” Does this mean Spanish will become the lingua franca when you are president? I hope so. I love the whole tapas concept and the peasants would soon enough get their tongues around the neo-Falangist slogans.
I see on your bio you proudly state that you have no Facebook account. Good for you. No real revolutionary would want to be associated with that digital despot Mark Zuckerberg. Other great leaders who feel the same way include Donald Trump and … er, that’s it. I don’t want to be an impimpi, but I couldn’t help noticing Floyd has a Facebook page. Just saying.
Condolences on not getting your way in having Cape Town International Airport renamed after Winnie Mandela. Maybe it’s for the best. It’s a dreadful airport. There are better restaurants and bars in downtown Lagos and as far as parking goes, you have more chance finding a spot outside Taboo on a Saturday night. Perhaps you should lower your sights a little. Would you settle for Brandfort Airport? It could do with a facelift. Then again, so could I.
I hope you have sorted out your issues with our minister of public enterprises. Pravin Gordhan might not be the kind of person you’d want over for dinner, largely because he’d do a mental lifestyle audit and the Hawks would be breaking down your door before the dishes were done, but he does seem to be freakishly ethical and honest. You’re not the only one who finds this unsettling. In South African politics, a man with nothing to hide is an aberration. Did he learn zilch from Jacob Zuma?
Maybe you can sic your mate Tom Moyane on him. Uncle Tom is a valuable asset in your struggle to turn South Africa into another Venezuela. He is, after all, an engineer with an impressive record. For instance, not everyone could engineer the collapse of the SA Revenue Service. Sure, the Nugent Commission found him unfit to hold office but so what? I’m unfit to hold a baby. You might be unfit to hold, I don’t know, public meetings or something else.
Hey, why are you so quiet about that explosive report revealing how the State Security Agency was manipulated and abused by the likes of Zuma, Siyabonga “My Wife Is Innocent” Cwele, David “Happy Endings” Mahlobo and Arthur “Fuck You Jacques Pauw” Fraser?
I don’t want to tell you your business and I know your raison d’être is to disrupt, oppose and get fabulously wealthy, but I do think it might be a mistake to only show support to the flawed and the faulty.
Have you thought about throwing your weight behind people who are trying to turn SAS South Africa away from the rocks rather than the pirates who are driving it onto the reef in the hope that the captain and his crew will drown, allowing them to cobble something together from the wreckage and flounder off to the glorious land of black monopoly capital and free everything for all?
Then again, you could just keep doing whatever it is you’re doing. All the best parties involve shouting, drinking and fighting and there is no reason yours should be any different.
Anyway, boss. Keep attacking those meddling newshounds. You don’t need them on your side. They only have access to dozens of daily and weekly newspapers, social media, television and radio stations and online news sites read by millions. You have Twitter.
Good luck.
Dear Honourable and Dishonourable ANC Members of Parliament,
So, a big day for you on Tuesday. You get to tell the nation that you have confidence in Jacob Zuma as our president. At the same time, you’re also allowed to express your real feelings. That’s the beauty of democracy.
So I hope you’re all feeling strong and healthy and ready to do your bit for the motherland. It would be a terrible shame if some of you – 51 should do it – fell violently ill on Monday and called in sick on the day of the vote, thereby allowing the opposition to unseat the greatest leader the world has ever seen.
Nobody in their right mind would vote against a president who is one hundred percent committed to destroying the country, presumably so that it may be rebuilt stronger than ever. But let us not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s get the destroying part done first. Our leader is under enough pressure as it is without his representatives in the legislature joining the counterrevolutionary proletariat in their irrational demands. There is a natural order to these things. Visions aren’t accomplished in a day.
Many of you have worked long and hard to help President Zuma succeed with Project Destroy. This is to your eternal credit and you will be richly rewarded, on top of the rewards you have already received. This is a project that never runs out of rewards. It’s like having timeshare in the Treasury.
This is your turn to eat. Unless, of course, you’re one of those MPs who weigh more than 150kg. In which case it’s your turn to buy a new car. Hell, buy two. Three. Spoil yourself. You’ve earned it. You have shown remarkable loyalty to a leader who works so selflessly and tirelessly to take money away from taxpayers to save them from themselves. Taxpayers drink and smoke and take drugs. They have casual sex and park on yellow lines. They gamble on the horses and in the casinos. They cannot be trusted with money. This is why our noble president must do what he does. Take their money and put in safekeeping. Not here, obviously. Large sums of money are best kept outside South Africa. Fortunately, the United Arab Emirates has made special provisions in this regard.
A vote of no confidence in the president would be a vote of no confidence in his humanitarian project. What kind self-respecting nationalist would do such a thing? American President Donald Trump has a similar plan, but he lacks our benevolent commander-in-chief’s intellect and ambition. Trump only wants to repeal Obamacare. Zuma wants to repeal the entire economy. I like a man who dreams big.
A massive 33% of voters approve of Trump’s performance in office. With the exception of one or two renegades who have clearly gone insane, every one of you slumped on an ANC bench approves of our noble president’s dream of uplifting the poor, even if it is only an impoverished family of humble Indian immigrants squatting in a shebeen in Saxonwold. Small steps.
Members of parliament who don’t have a blesser for a leader will vote against the president on Tuesday. This unpatriotic behaviour must be condemned. And when I say condemned, I mean they must be taken outside and shot. It’s the only language liberals and democrats understand.
At the time of writing this, Speaker Baleka Mbete was still trying to decide whether she should allow a secret ballot. I think voting should be open. Secrets are for governments with something to hide. Ours is a firm believer in transparency, even going so far as to loot and pillage in broad daylight right under our noses. We, the people, appreciate that kind of openness.
It’s only been 45 days since the Constitutional Court ruled that Mbete had the power to make the ballot a secret one. These things are not to be rushed. I once took a year to decide whether I should give my second marriage a third shot. The answer, of course, doesn’t lie in the decision ipso facto. It lies in the consequences.
Speaking of lies, ANC secretary-general Greedy Mantashe has made it clear that none of you is allowed to vote according to your conscience. And rightly so. Your membership fee entitles you to a T-shirt, a cap and unlimited access to the party’s free website. Also, if you know the right people, wealth beyond your wildest imaginings. It does not entitle you to a conscience. You are lawmakers and the business of making laws would be severely compromised if you had to start differentiating between right and wrong. That nonsense is the exclusive preserve of bong-puffing philosophers, kiddie fiddler priests and judges of the high court who spend more time on Tinder than on writing up judgements.
Mantashe emphasised that the ANC is not a party of free agents. It is a party of captured agents. And also travel agents, because you guys are always somewhere else. The DA is a party of bloody agents. The EFF is a party of secret agents. The Freedom Front Plus is a party of estate agents (willing buyer, willing seller or death). And so on.
By the way, have you heard about this new coalition called FutureSA? Members include – Sipho Pityana, Sydney Mufamadi, Kumi Naidoo, Terence Nombembe, Zac Yakoob and Bruce Fordyce – now apparently running against the comrades. Heavy hitters, but not as heavy as you. They get to bring Cape Town to a standstill on Tuesday, but if you vote as I expect you will, the entire country will eventually grind to a standstill. That’s what I call real power. And, as they say in Cuba, with real power comes real money.
Our angelic president has survived at least six votes of no confidence. This makes him a winner in anyone’s book. Don’t spoil his unblemished record. He will still lead us to the promised land. Maybe keep some money aside for a visa. Dubai charges R1 370 for 30 days. And, remember, no singing, dancing, drinking, swearing, gayness or public displays of affection. It’s not that kind of promised land.
White South Africans, much like white sharks, are one of the most misunderstood animals on the planet. They have a reputation for unpredictable behaviour and non-Caucasians are often afraid to venture into their territory for fear of being attacked.
Some, however, are merely inquisitive and will circle warily before racing off in their Hyundais. Others, perhaps sensing their way of life is under threat, might go on the offensive. A lot of the time, though, this will be nothing more serious than a mock charge. Stand your ground and they will more often than not back off.
White people, particularly alpha males, are easily enraged. They have been bumped from their slot at the top of the food chain and are struggling to adapt to their new position.
In many instances, they can be calmed down with offers of raw meat and brandy. There is nothing a white South African likes more than a chunk of charred cow and a bottle of cheap liquor. If he has just eaten and is already drunk, he might show no interest in your offer. This is when he is at his most dangerous.
The best way to ward off an attack, verbal or physical, is to threaten him with charges of racism. He will retreat faster than Khulubuse Zuma confronted with a salad.
When the EFF says whites need to come to the party or their land will be confiscated, they are forgetting one thing. White people don’t just rock up at a party. They need an invitation. They also need directions. And even then, they are going to want to know who else will be there. I think if the EFF had to put white people on the guest list and tell them there would be snacks, spare girls, a free shooter at the door and a DJ playing hits from the 80s, they would almost certainly come to the party. Unless it was raining, in which case they wouldn’t.
We already have a fairly good idea of what white people don’t like. In the interests of fostering better race relations, let’s take a look at some of the things they do like.
Queues
White people like nothing more than an orderly queue. There are two rules governing the queue: no eye contact and no talking. Do not be alarmed if you are standing somewhere with your hands in your pockets idly wondering what to do with your day and white people spontaneously begin forming a line behind you. They will be too polite to ask if you are in the queue and will happily stand there for hours waiting for some of whatever it is they think you are waiting for.
Hiking/jogging/cycling
Even though every white person owns at least three cars, a boat and a private plane, they rarely use them for transport, preferring instead to get something they call exercise. If you see a white person running, do not assume he has been hijacked. Your offer of a lift to the police station will be misconstrued and things could end badly.
4x4s
Now that sjambokking the staff is frowned upon, white people have to get their jollies elsewhere. Riding roughshod over the environment has become the new urban aphrodisiac. White people also enjoy taking their 4×4 to the carwash, even though the trophy wife has only ever used it to drop her Aryan offspring at the private school on the corner. Don’t bother asking for a lift. There is never room because the back seat is for the Borzois. You would be missing the point if you mentioned that the dogs aren’t even in the car.
Sea views
White people have such a yearning for sea views you could be forgiven for thinking that if some of them were a bit brighter, they could be related to dolphins. But with burglaries and rates and taxes on the increase, second homes at the coast are becoming, much like the South African passport, a crushing liability.
Classical music
Apart from sausages, Vienna – the home of classical music – has little in common with Africa. White people are drawn to classical music for two reasons. It places them above the middle class – who spend their evenings listening not so much to the sound of Mozart as they do to the sound of gunshots and screaming – and it places them under no pressure to get up and dance.
Horse riding
Although horses are useful only for transporting marijuana out of Lesotho, many white families keep race horses as a means of getting to the nearest airport in a hurry when the ANC Youth League take over the country and nationalise all private vehicles. In white culture, a pony for the youngest daughter is often a traditional gift. If you encounter a lady of the manor astride her mount down a leafy lane in, say, Noordhoek, doff your cap and fall to one knee. As they pass, you may want to whisper: “Neigh, my bru.” Unlike dogs, horses owned by white people have a fine sense of humour.
Wine
Wine was invented by white people for white people. They have much in common – both can be petulant, bitter and easily spoiled. And the cheap, nasty ones always worsen with age. If you find yourself at a wine-tasting on a farm in Franschhoek and a foreigner mistakes you for the sommelier, you might say: “I would recommend the Augusto Pinochet, madam.” Alternatively, you might want to say: “Go fuck yourself, madam.” Your call.
Complaining
We live in a country run by a government that makes it exceptionally difficult for those who don’t wish to complain. Over the past 20-odd years, complaining has developed into a lifestyle. White people love complaining almost as much as they love rugby and Woolworths. If you find yourself pinned down by a complainer, don’t be reckless and say something like, “So what are you doing to change the situation?” Rather smile, nod and back away slowly.
Weather
You might think they would be used to it by now, but white people spend much of their time talking about it. Being born in Africa with European genes plays havoc with their internal barometers. Deeply conflicted, they complain endlessly about the heat, the cold, the wet and the dry.
Pets
Because their families are frequently dysfunctional, white people collect cats and dogs and treat them as if they were the fruit of their own loins. Many white people even train their dogs not to attack strangers, but to rather sit at the table and eat with a spoon. Cats don’t care much for table manners, let alone white people, and they may well be the downfall of this great nation. If a white person’s dog goes for you in the street, tell him the animal has character and he might pay your medical bills.
Schedules
The only reason World War II was a success was because Germany invaded Poland on schedule. One of the reasons an African country has never tried to colonise the world is because most people don’t have watches and it would be impossible to coordinate anything. White people grow restless when things don’t happen on time, such as government programmes to house, educate and employ millions of people who might otherwise start blaming white people.
Minimalism
When Robert Browning wrote the immortal lines, “Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged” in his poem Andrea del Sarto, he wasn’t to know that 150 years later, pseudo-Italian architects with Arabian catamites and coke-encrusted nostrils would use it as a haute monde design philosophy. If you visit a white person’s home and they have very little in it, compliment them on their interesting use of space. If they say they have nothing because they’re poor, you should leave.
Antiques
White people like old things more than they like old people. They spend a fortune putting their parents in old age homes and then spend a bigger fortune putting old stuff in their houses. They think that having a 17th Century Parisian douche bag on a pedestal would be more rewarding than a father who can’t remember his name. If white people visit your home and take an interest in your furniture, tell them the chairs were carved by Taharka, King of Kush. They will probably think this is a drug reference and try to buy weed from you. Add on 25% and give them whatever they want.
Eating out
White people go to restaurants even when they have food in the house. This is because an entire generation of white mothers failed to teach their daughters to cook. The daughters don’t see this as a failure. They see it as a step towards the total emancipation of women. Really, darling? You won’t cook and you want to be free? Fine. See ya. Have a nice life. Hello, Mr Delivery?
Dear Comrade Julius Malema the First, Commander-in-Chief of the Economic Freedom Fighters, Hero of the Poor, Prince of Pedis, the People’s Parliamentarian, Evader of Taxes and Creator of the Revolutionary Onesie.
Congratulations on getting your BA degree through Unisa. That’s quite an achievement, especially when you consider how difficult it is just to get through to them on the phone.
I see you’ve been very busy lately putting your qualifications into practice and exercising your superior intellect. For a start, you reminded the people of Soweto about their role in the struggle against apartheid. Well done. People have short attention spans these days and all too often we forget hair appointments, wedding anniversaries and crimes against humanity.
The real masterstroke, though, was when you reminded the crowd to continue reproducing. I often forget to reproduce, with the result that I have only one loinfruit. Pathetic, I know. But this is good for black people because, as you so accurately pointed out, “White people do not want us to give birth because they know we are more than them … The day they are more than us, they will take over our land.”
It’s a fascinating theory, right up there with Frantz Fanon’s theory of colonial identity and the parallels between racial and commodity-based fetishism. And, obviously, the theory that Tinky Winky is gay.
However, no matter how brilliant theories are, it is important that they be tested. Without testing we could all just go around saying things like, “The moon landing was fake.” And, “9/11 was an inside job.” Which it quite clearly was. I don’t believe the moon landing was faked, though, because there is no such thing as ‘the moon’. I know a hologram when I see one and this is up there with the best.
Anyway, I tested your theory that white people wanted to take over politically by out-breeding black people. My maths is about as good as your woodwork, so my figures might not be one hundred and ten percent accurate. There are 55 million people in this country, most of whom can be found in my local bottle store on a Friday afternoon. Of that, 44 million are black and 4.5 million white. Hang on. What’s this? There are 4.8 million coloureds? Are you aware of this? What if you’re wrong and it’s the coloureds, not the whites, who are out to win this breeding war? If that is the case, we’re in deep trouble, my brother, and blacks and whites need to stand together against the Bruin Gevaar.
But I assume you’re right because you have been right about everything so far … well, everything apart from your blind loyalty to President Zuma, which only ended when he pulled a Dr Frankenstein four years ago and inadvertently turned you into his monster. I use the word ‘his’ loosely.
So here are my calculations. For the white population to go top of the log, every last Caucasian would have to have ten babies. That includes pensioners, children and, indeed, babies themselves. That’s right, comrade. The babies would have to have babies. But that’s not all. The men as well as the women would need to breed, which is entirely possible because it’s a well-known fact that white men have ovaries tucked behind their livers.
Oh, no. My test just got a whole lot more complicated. Figures show that last year the black population grew by 7.3% while the white population declined by 4.2%. This means that … I don’t know what it means. This is one of those rare moments in my life where beer can’t help.
So, unless Statistics SA is part of the white supremacist conspiracy, I think it’s fairly safe to say that white South Africans are still breeding – they’re just doing it in Perth, London and Auckland.
I must say, though, that you are a bit of a natural contraception. I was lying in bed with a girlfriend watching you being all red and shouty in parliament and she got so depressed that she lost all interest in sex. Maybe it’s a white thing.
You also told the people of Soweto – a vast, sparsely populated area where you can sometimes travel for up to three or four metres without bumping into another living soul – that “to make children is a revolutionary duty‚ because children represent reproduction of society. And when you reproduce yourself you reproduce your ideas and legacy.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but as far as I know, you have spawned only one sproglodyte while your archenemy Jacob Zuma has 22 at last count. Soon we will find out who is the real revolutionary.
Inexplicably, not everyone recognises your genius. Jabu Mahlangu, spokesman for the SA National Civic Organisation, described your call to coitus as “illogical gibberish”. Well, that’s one less person you have to name a street after once you’re president.
Anyway, good luck with the launch of your manifesto next weekend. Did you know it comes from the Greek word ‘mani’ meaning ‘barefaced’ and ‘festo’ meaning ‘lies’? Of course you did.
Also, all the best for the municipal elections. When you win a municipality you absolutely must ride into town on a tank. It worked for the Americans when they liberated Paris and it can work for you when you liberate Parys. I’m happy to come in with my flamethrower and flush out the last of the ANC councillors.
By the way, I like your logo – a giant black fist dominating Africa and threatening South America with an assegai. Good for you. Those goddamn uppity Latinos need to learn that they aren’t the only ones who can cripple economies through poorly thought out socialist policies.
President Jacob Zuma’s nine-step programme to save the economy has a lot in common with AA’s 12-step programme to save alcoholics. They both rely on the intervention of a higher power and … well, that’s about it.
Watching the State of the Nation address last week was like being on drugs. There was the frisson of anticipation, the big build-up, the climax and the come-down. Maybe I’m thinking of sex more than drugs. I often get the two confused. Would you like to sleep with me? Yes please, where do I suck? It happens.
Helen Zille was there wearing purple and a smirk. I can’t remember when last I heard her barking about some or other issue. Then again, I’d also go very quiet if I was earning R1.7m a year. I’d be so quiet that you wouldn’t even know I was here. Which I wouldn’t be. I’d be in Madagascar. Not among the poor, obviously.
I love the pomp and ceremony that surrounds the State of the Nation address every year. There is nothing quite like the smell of teargas and the sound of stun grenades as one runs through the Company Gardens to avoid being beaten or arrested. It’s what makes democracy great.
There were motorcycle cops, the cavalry and a fleet of black snub-nosed BMWs. Cannons were fired. There was screaming. Ambulances raced through the debris. A weeping mother held her dead child … what? Oh. I sat on the remote. That was Aleppo.
I love how our elected representatives still waddle down the traditional red carpet towards that holy chamber of promises and lies. The early colonialists used a white carpet, of course. They only switched to red when it became too much of a bother to get the bloodstains out.
Zuma and his femme du jour walked grimly down the carpet. I have seen pictures of dictators walking to their executions with happier faces than theirs.
The session started with an “opportunity for silent prayer”. It lasted for exactly six seconds. This pretty much limits you to, “Jesus, please let this be over quickly.”
The EFF behaved like attention deficit children deprived of their Ritalin and Terror Lekota had the good sense to get thrown out just as happy hour started at the pub around the corner.
After watching Zuma pick his way through his speech, approaching every syllable and number with the trepidation of an explosives expert approaching a landmine, I switched off. But not before Speaker Baleka Mbete’s hectoring tone got my skin crawling. Shame. Her prosopagnosia has got a lot worse since I last saw her in parliament. She barely recognises anyone any more.
Anyway. We already know what the state of the nation is. Unlike Jacob Zupta, we actually live in the belly of this savage beast.
Dear Right Honourable Excellency Julius Sello Malema the First, Commander in Chief of the Economic Freedom Fighters, Ruler of all the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of Colonialism in Africa in General and South Africa in Particular.
Or, in the parlance of the common people, heita Juju! Having said that, there shall come a time when political scientists will want to add an ism to your name. You need to drop a vowel. Malemism is easier on the tongue than Malemaism, which sounds more like a tropical malaise than a bona fide ideology.
People have been coming up to me and saying, “Who is EFF?” Sometimes they say, “Who the eff are you?” but their kind is best ignored. You put it rather nicely in your manifesto: “The EFF is a radical, leftist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movement with an internationalist outlook anchored by popular grassroots formations and struggles.”
That clears that up, then.
I predict that, before the end of the decade, Malemism will overtake Marxism as the predominant school of thought among a new generation of urban guerrillas. Compared to you, Karl Marx was a pussycat. Marxism is a theory. Malemism will be a fact. If anyone argues, have Shivambu stab them in the face. Oops. That was a Floydian slip. Have him talk some sense into them. An open dialogue is usually less messy than an open wound.
What ruined Marxism for me was the number of psychobrates Karl allowed in to the inner circle. Even though he was very bright for a white man, Karl made the mistake of encouraging other men with beards to get savagely twisted on Jägermeister and come up with all kinds of crazy things like dialectical materialism and economic determinism. The proletariat could barely spell their own names. No wonder Marxism never caught on.
Now that Dali Mpofu, the devil’s advocate, is a member of your merry band of brigands, your quota of intellectuals has been filled. Do not accept anyone else with a university degree. Too many revolutions have been ruined by some smartass at the back who puts up his hand and says, “But, commander in chief, if we are going to nationalise everything, throw farmers off their land and give everyone free health care, housing and education, where will we get the money to, you know, pay for things like roads and power stations?”
When the EFF takes power, you can do away with money altogether and use stones instead. This country has plenty of them. The Karoo could be the new Treasury, except there won’t be any security at the door. Or any doors. People could just drive out there, fill their boot with stones and be rich right away. Small stones could buy takeaways while rocks could be used to buy bigger things like tumble dryers and plasma televisions. A Mercedes would cost a small boulder, of which we have plenty.
It’s uncanny how much you and Marx have in common. Karl collaborated with Friedrich Engels. You speak Engels. Your insightful exchange of ideas with BBC correspondent Jonah Fisher in 2010, which included the phrase, “Rubbish is what you have covered in that trouser”, showed an admirable grasp of the subtle nuances of the English language.
Marx studied at the University of Bonn. You once drove past the University of Cape Town.
You sang ‘Dubula iBunu’. He sang ‘Lydia the Tattooed Lady’. No, wait. That was Groucho Marx. My researcher is drunk. I shall have him stripped naked and flogged at once.
By the way, I like your website. The colours of blood and canaries are very 2014. I also like your logo. A giant black fist dominating Africa, threatening Brazil with an assegai. Good for you. Those goddamn uppity Latinos need to learn that they aren’t the only ones who can cripple economies through poorly thought out socialist policies.
It’s also a smart move to invite people to donate R30 to the cause by sending an sms. Any idiot can send an sms. And I am nothing if not an idiot. I fired off an sms right away. Any chance of a receipt? When you finally deploy the 5th Expropriation Brigade, I want to be able to show them something that sets me apart from the neo-imperialist counter-revolutionary running dogs of capitalism that infest my suburb.
I see you are with FNB. Good choice. I like their slogan: “First National Bankie – How Can Weed Help You.”
I am also very impressed with your manifesto. Did you know that it comes from the Greek word ‘mani’ meaning ‘barefaced’ and ‘festo’ meaning ‘lies’? Of course you did.
I found it a tad long at around 20-thousand words, but that shouldn’t be a problem for your followers. By the time the economically disenfranchised have finished looking up words like heterodox and beneficiation, American helicopters will be evacuating the last of the capitalists from the roof of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the sangomas can move in. The fall of Saigon will seem like a stumble by comparison.
Nice touch kicking it off with a quote from Frantz Fanon, although one or two of your members might struggle to relate to a Martinique-born French Creole psychiatrist who dabbled in existential humanism on his days off. On the other hand, he did actively support the Algerian war of independence from France. As a result, Algeria today is in far better shape than France. And you, Julius, are in far better shape than Frantz.
The quote is, “Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.” Or, in the case of the ANC, and betray it. Do you like that? Have it.
The first point in your preamble reads, “Our decision is to fight for the economic emancipation of the people of South Africa, Africa and the world.” Nothing wrong with aiming high, comrade. But the world? I hope you have a passport.
One of your seven pillars for economic emancipation is to “build government capacity allowing the abolishment of tenders”. This is brilliant. Nobody need rely on the government for work because everyone will already be working for the government. Thirty million civil servants should get the job done in no time at all. Who cares if the economy shuts down over lunch every day? It’s a big, hungry thing, the economy is, and it can’t be expected to go all day without so much as a smoke break.
I love all the free stuff mentioned in your fourth pillar. Education, health care, housing, sanitation. I would go further and offer free booze. Having a roof over your head and knowing the square root of twelve would feel so much more satisfying if it came with a box of beer.
Pillar number five says there will be “massive protected industrial development to create millions of sustainable jobs”. By protected I expect you mean that once the workers are inside, the factories will be sealed off with bladewire and minefields. Don’t let the bastards out. Ever. You didn’t say they would be paying jobs. Clever, that.
Your second pillar calls for the nationalisation of banks, mines and other sectors of the economy without compensation. You might need heavy artillery for the banks. I have been trying to get an appointment with my branch manager for months. You are going to have to winkle the swine out with howitzers.
The manifesto also says, “It is a crying shame that in the 21st century we are presided over by an elite system of power where only 400 members of the national assembly govern over 50 million people. The EFF shall agitate for the transfer of power to the people.”
You need to have teams visiting every home in every town. If the person who opens the door can sing the first stanza of L’Internationale and answer three questions about, say, the Babylonian revolt against Assyrian rule, he or she gets to make a new law right there and then. Parliament can be converted into a vegetable market.
And you say house repossessions will be illegal? Yeah! Fuck the bond. What are you going to do now, Sheriff? Shoot me? Oh. Okay, wait.
You also want to see “the scrapping of criminal record statuses of ex-convicts who were convicted of certain schedules of crime”. Nothing wrong in thinking ahead. That’s the mark of any good leader who might one day go to jail for certain schedules of crimes. Like tax evasion. Or money laundering. Or racketeering.
You warn that your policies might cause an “imperial backlash”. I wouldn’t worry about that. When the Mau Mau did their thing in Kenya, the imperial backlash extended to the madams of Happy Valley firing the servants and pouring their own gin and tonics. I expect our imperialists would do the same – right after they have shut down their multi-billion rand investments and repatriated the profits.
I like how your manifesto separates the race groups. It does away with all that simunye nonsense. For instance, you talk of the “Coloured question”, saying that the EFF will come up with revolutionary programmes to guarantee them fishing rights. I don’t know when last you were in Cape Town, but you should know that not all of them are fishermen. Many have diversified into the narcotics industry. It’s an important demographic. Don’t neglect them or they will be at the throats of the fishermen in no time at all and you will be to blame.
Still under the section titled “The Coloured working class”, you say, “The wine farms in the Cape should be expropriated and redistributed to the farm workers.” This is an excellent idea. Who cares if the chief financial officer of Spier has no front teeth and a touch of the old foetal alcohol syndrome? I certainly don’t. And I am all for buying cabernet sauvignon in five-litre plastic containers.
Under the “Indian/Asian working class”, you question whether Indians should be classified as a historically disadvantaged group. Should they benefit from affirmative action? You seem unsure. I tried asking around but the thing with Indian fellows is that you ask them one thing and they tell you another. And another. And before you know it the whole day has gone by and you’re lakka goofed and dronk.
When I came to the “White working class”, my sphincter snapped shut. I was expecting terrible things. But all you said was that white people who didn’t own land and the means of production would be allowed to live. Ha ha. Not really. Instead, we would benefit from the EFF’s struggle. Yay for me. I don’t own much more than a car and two surfboards, so I’m safe. Right, comrade? I am safe, aren’t I?
One thing is certain – the poor will send you to parliament next year. That’s R70 000 a month in your pocket right there. Sure, this is peanuts compared to what you are accustomed to, but it’s a start.
Anyway. Good luck, commander. If your dreams come true, we will all be living in one hell of a state.