It's a bit late, but here as submitted to the Weekend Argus, is my pre-election column. -- AD
IT IS no secret here at the Mahogany Ridge that, after years of watching them root about in the slops, my loathing for politicians is well nigh absolute.
I’ve come to expect nothing but the worst from them, particularly in the weeks ahead of an election when we are assailed at every turn by the thieving swine who smile at us in the manner of a paedophile offering sweets to children.
Nothing, however, could have prepared me for the repugnant manner in which the ANC has behaved in the past few weeks.
Given that, thanks in particular to the efforts of the youth league, the overarching metaphor of the polls is the open toilet, it is hardly surprising that the tenor of their campaign was that of a broken sewer.
It was the youngsters who led the charge at Makhaza, in Khayelitsha, where they seized the open commode as if it were the Holy Grail -- and how gratifying that, having gorged themselves at its porcelain rim, the party is now finding it something of a poisoned chalice.
A fortnight ago the newspapers were full of their crowing after the Western Cape High Court ruling by Judge Nathan Erasmus that the agreement between the City and the Makhaza settlement over the construction of the unenclosed toilets was unlawful.
As ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu put it: “Not only is this landmark judgment a vindication of the long-held ANC view shared by many people, particularly the poor black working class of the Western Cape, that the DA is a racist political party only committed to protecting the last vestiges and policies of apartheid, but that its building of unenclosed toilets in Makhaza shows total disrespect for black dignity.”
Dignity itself was up next, in the form of Julius Malema.
“Spread the message,” he announced from the court steps. “We are here today to bring down Helen Zille. Convince everybody here to vote for the ANC. This is a victory for the people of Cape Town and the Western Cape. But I promise that the DA will not abide by the ruling; it will be up to Tony (Ehrenreich) to fix the toilets because the DA doesn’t care about poor people. But we can get rid of that racist Zille by voting for the ANC on the May 18 elections.”
A pity, then, that he didn’t bother to pay much attention to the actual contents of the Erasmus judgment, which pointed out, right from the get-go -- in its third paragraph, in fact -- that, far from winning, the people of Cape Town were, in this particular regard, the losers in this shameful, undignified business.
To wit: “In this matter we have seen, various government organisations litigating on opposing sides at a high cost to the tax payer. The Mayor of the City of Cape Town Mr Dan Plato and second applicant, Mr Andile Lili, who purports to be a political leader and an Executive member of the African National Congress Youth League, simply failed to rise above their political contest as opposed to their duty towards those that need to benefit the poor and vulnerable.”
Shame on them.
But then came the reports from the Free State of the open toilets in a township near Viljoenskroon, in the ANC-run Moqhaka municipality.
Clearly embarrassed, a high-powered ANC delegation, which included Free State premier Ace Magashule, housing and settlements minister Tony Yengeni and sports minister Fikilele Mbalula as well as Malema, raced to Rammulotsi with foreign and local press in tow in a desperate and pathetic attempt at damage control.
There was a revealing photograph in the dailies. It showed Malema declaiming before what appeared to be a broken loo in the exaggerated manner of the Victorian melodrama. Mbalula, behind him, looked on in shock and awe. All it needed were cartoon speech bubbles: “What is this shit?” “Our arses on a plate, methinks.”
Perhaps the most surprised of all, though, were the people of Rammulotsi. They’d long since given up hope. The toilets were built in 2003. That was three national elections ago. And now only the authorities show up, pretending to give a damn?
But, not long now, and that will all be behind us, all the bilge about cockroaches and dancing like monkeys, all the racism, the spite and the hatred, the moronic spew about white people being thieves and criminals, and all that will remain after Wednesday will be the posters, flapping off poles like the broken wings of dead birds after a violent storm.
And the people of Rammulotsi? They’ll just be a distant memory by next week. Who really cares about them? The ANC? I think not.
Showing posts with label politicians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politicians. Show all posts
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
A Famous Grouse: February 26
Weekend Argus column, as submitted. -- AD
TO the shores of Tripoli, where there seems to be no end to Muammar Gaddafi’s bad hair days.
Despite the fact that the Colonel shares a milliner with Mrs Madikizela-Mandela and enjoys a reputation for doing absolutely fabulous things with old Errol Arendz frocks, he has of late been losing it rather badly in front of the television cameras, and the red carpet fizz could well be a thing of the past.
His latest outburst had even the most jaded of the Mahogany Ridge regulars stunned into silence, their flabbers very, very gasted.
Daffy would now have us believe that not only have the Libyan protesters been manipulated by al Qaeda, but they are all teenagers on drugs. “Their ages are 17,” the Siren of the Sands explained on national television. “They give them pills at night, they put hallucinatory pills in their drinks, their milk, their coffee, their Nescafe.”
Oh dear, oh dear. And they’ve probably been listening to pop music as well.
The bad hair days, though, could soon be a thing of the past. This however is not good news for Daffy. Even in his most delusional moments, and there certainly have been a lot of those recently, he must be aware that one of the more prominent traits of the jasmine revolution sweeping the region is that these are not drawn-out affairs, and the killing of civilians certainly won’t change this.
In fact, the swiftness with which the Tunisian and Egyptian tyrannies fell perfectly complements the social networking era. It’s like so digital, man, that if this was The Arabian Nights, it would be a thousand and one tweets. “Meet in square, topl govt, then off 2 Ali’s disco. Rock on, dudes.”
Brother leader’s furious avowal, then, that he would die like a martyr may not be such empty blather after all, and here at the Ridge we’ve opened a book on Daffy’s last days.
True, there is a good chance that he’ll be allowed to leave the country -- but, given the universal condemnation of his murderous behaviour, who would have him? The smart money’s on Zimbabwe.
And should it end very badly for Daffy? Well, the odds are strong that it would be at the end of a rope or by firing squad, and less so by stoning or beheading. Given the mysteries of the Sahara, however, anything is possible up there, and it may well come to pass that a revolutionary tribunal will order him staked out in the desert and be trampled to death by stampeding camels.
Our thoughts, meanwhile, are with the Amazonian Guard, Daffy’s elite force of henchbabes. The 40 members of this bodyguard unit are all virgins, cherry-picked -- figuratively, of course -- by Daffy himself.
These young women undergo extensive martial arts and firearms training. They wear their berets at a suitably coquettish angle, bring a certain something to battle fatigues and jumpsuits and, with appropriate use of lipgloss and other beauty products, smoulder with an intensity that, let’s say, is wholly absent in our female Metro cops.
What is to happen to them when Daffy goes? It would be a shame if the unit disbanded. Maybe they could get film work. As it is, they already look like something out of a James Bond movie. And what about a job at Mavericks or Teazers? A lap dance from a virgin who can kill you in six different ways with an eyeliner pencil certainly has dangerous appeal. When she says no touching, you know she means it.
Closer to home, meanwhile, our attention has been drawn to Jimmy Manyi, the recently appointed appointed government spokesman who appears to have been freely helping himself to Daffy’s Nescafe.
Manyi believes there are too many coloured people in the Western Cape -- “this over-representation . . . is not working for them” -- and it would be better for all if they scattered themselves far and wide across the whole country.
Unfortunately, there are far too many people who think like this in government. Politicans who wonder why large sections of the population regard them with such disgust may well ponder the words of the late writer and philosopher, Auberon Waugh, who once suggested that their distasteful urges to power were personality disorders in their own right, “rather like the urge to sexual congress with children or the taste for rubber underwear”.
Manyi’s racist outburst, however, goes so much further than the mere urge to bother ordinary citizens. It rather ominously echoes all the other social engineering horrors: lebensraum, apartheid, the pogroms, the displacements and the final solutions.
Such people, it hardly needs saying, are well advised to take note of events in Libya, Algeria, Bahrain, Yemen and elsewhere.
TO the shores of Tripoli, where there seems to be no end to Muammar Gaddafi’s bad hair days.
Despite the fact that the Colonel shares a milliner with Mrs Madikizela-Mandela and enjoys a reputation for doing absolutely fabulous things with old Errol Arendz frocks, he has of late been losing it rather badly in front of the television cameras, and the red carpet fizz could well be a thing of the past.
His latest outburst had even the most jaded of the Mahogany Ridge regulars stunned into silence, their flabbers very, very gasted.
Daffy would now have us believe that not only have the Libyan protesters been manipulated by al Qaeda, but they are all teenagers on drugs. “Their ages are 17,” the Siren of the Sands explained on national television. “They give them pills at night, they put hallucinatory pills in their drinks, their milk, their coffee, their Nescafe.”
Oh dear, oh dear. And they’ve probably been listening to pop music as well.
The bad hair days, though, could soon be a thing of the past. This however is not good news for Daffy. Even in his most delusional moments, and there certainly have been a lot of those recently, he must be aware that one of the more prominent traits of the jasmine revolution sweeping the region is that these are not drawn-out affairs, and the killing of civilians certainly won’t change this.
In fact, the swiftness with which the Tunisian and Egyptian tyrannies fell perfectly complements the social networking era. It’s like so digital, man, that if this was The Arabian Nights, it would be a thousand and one tweets. “Meet in square, topl govt, then off 2 Ali’s disco. Rock on, dudes.”
Brother leader’s furious avowal, then, that he would die like a martyr may not be such empty blather after all, and here at the Ridge we’ve opened a book on Daffy’s last days.
True, there is a good chance that he’ll be allowed to leave the country -- but, given the universal condemnation of his murderous behaviour, who would have him? The smart money’s on Zimbabwe.
And should it end very badly for Daffy? Well, the odds are strong that it would be at the end of a rope or by firing squad, and less so by stoning or beheading. Given the mysteries of the Sahara, however, anything is possible up there, and it may well come to pass that a revolutionary tribunal will order him staked out in the desert and be trampled to death by stampeding camels.
Our thoughts, meanwhile, are with the Amazonian Guard, Daffy’s elite force of henchbabes. The 40 members of this bodyguard unit are all virgins, cherry-picked -- figuratively, of course -- by Daffy himself.
These young women undergo extensive martial arts and firearms training. They wear their berets at a suitably coquettish angle, bring a certain something to battle fatigues and jumpsuits and, with appropriate use of lipgloss and other beauty products, smoulder with an intensity that, let’s say, is wholly absent in our female Metro cops.
What is to happen to them when Daffy goes? It would be a shame if the unit disbanded. Maybe they could get film work. As it is, they already look like something out of a James Bond movie. And what about a job at Mavericks or Teazers? A lap dance from a virgin who can kill you in six different ways with an eyeliner pencil certainly has dangerous appeal. When she says no touching, you know she means it.
Closer to home, meanwhile, our attention has been drawn to Jimmy Manyi, the recently appointed appointed government spokesman who appears to have been freely helping himself to Daffy’s Nescafe.
Manyi believes there are too many coloured people in the Western Cape -- “this over-representation . . . is not working for them” -- and it would be better for all if they scattered themselves far and wide across the whole country.
Unfortunately, there are far too many people who think like this in government. Politicans who wonder why large sections of the population regard them with such disgust may well ponder the words of the late writer and philosopher, Auberon Waugh, who once suggested that their distasteful urges to power were personality disorders in their own right, “rather like the urge to sexual congress with children or the taste for rubber underwear”.
Manyi’s racist outburst, however, goes so much further than the mere urge to bother ordinary citizens. It rather ominously echoes all the other social engineering horrors: lebensraum, apartheid, the pogroms, the displacements and the final solutions.
Such people, it hardly needs saying, are well advised to take note of events in Libya, Algeria, Bahrain, Yemen and elsewhere.
Monday, December 6, 2010
A Famous Grouse: December 4, 2010
The most recent Weekend Argus column. -- AD
OH dear, Anneli Botes. What to make of this unfortunate woman and her silly comments? Or better still, what to make of our reaction to her, which, I’d suggest, is more alarming?
To a chattering class that has perhaps grown weary of the cretinous Julius Malema, now the single, overarching symbol of our public life, Botes’ admission, in an interview with Rapport, that she disliked black people because she was scared of them was a welcome diversion, and we fell upon her as if she was the sushi on the girls at Kenny Kunene’s place.
She was, in short, an ignorant racist. Granted, they said, she may be an award-winning novelist, but she was nevertheless an imbecile who had no place among us and should leave the country at once.
There came a deafening and perhaps predictably hypocritical clamour from the usual gang of white commentators who fell over themselves in a self-righteous rush to point out that, no, not all white people were like Botes, and that some were so different, they were even rather special. Bearded sage types like themselves, in fact.
It’s true that much of what Botes had to say about black people was nonsense. Her suggestion that violent crime showed blacks, as a group, were “angry because of their own incompetence” is, frankly, crap. Alarmingly -- for a writer, at least -- she appeared to have no grasp of our history. This is what happens, I suppose, when you live in Port Elizabeth, the singularly most isolated and cloistered white community south of the retirement villages of Bournemouth. But that is another issue for another time, perhaps.
Distressingly, there are those who endorse Botes’ views, who believe her crackpot theories are valid. But we err, perhaps, when we dismiss those who defend her right to freedom of expression as being racist as well. And, here’s a thing, I believe Botes was at least honest in expressing her views, however retarded they may be. It may have made us all feel a whole lot more comfortable, but would it have been better if she had lied?
Which brings me to a point -- what my response would have been if someone had asked me: “Who or what do you fear?” Several probable answers spring almost immediately to mind. Disease, loneliness, violence. All in all, prosaic stuff, and nothing too exciting there, really, so perhaps a better question would be: “What should we fear?”
What about politicians? Should we fear them?
Hmmm. Tricky. Certainly, we should despise politicians, and it is probably our duty to do so. We must keep them at a distance, and at all times deny them access to places where the innocent and the weak are gathered. Schools and hospitals especially.
At worst, politicians are greedy sociopaths and at best . . . well, there is no best. They lie. They steal. They cheat. They are unable to experience any degree of shame. They would sell their own mothers for a packet of cigarettes. Their concern with our wellbeing is that of a fox towards a crippled chicken. And, perhaps their most loathsome attribute -- how they love to bang on and on, like a stuck record, about the national interest.
Think about it. Why must we have a media appeals tribunal, and punish journalists and writers? It’s in the national interest. Why must we have a debate about the role of the media in a post-apartheid democratic society -- a debate, incidentally, in which journalists’ views will almost certainly not be welcome or even considered? It’s in the national interest.
Why the wholesale looting of the country’s mineral resources? Why the shady deals? The nepotism and favours for friends that bedevils our business culture? Why the lack of transparency in our corporate life? It’s in the national interest.
Why must there be moral regeneration? Why all the pastorpreneurs trysting with the gang of thieves in Luthuli House? Why the resurgent discussion about the need for religion in the curricula of our schools? It’s in the national interest.
Why the much-vaunted return to traditional values? Why do we need unelected traditional leaders? Why do we continue to squander public money on parasite kings and feudal royal houses in a constitutional democracy? It’s in the national interest.
The same goes for the the blue-light convoys, the fat salaries, the luxury cars and the costly trips abroad. Ditto the extra ministers and deputy minsters with the result that we have a cabinet that has grown at much the same rate as the girth of Khulubuse Zuma, the president’s Jabba the Hut-like nephew?
The national interest? Fear it.
OH dear, Anneli Botes. What to make of this unfortunate woman and her silly comments? Or better still, what to make of our reaction to her, which, I’d suggest, is more alarming?
To a chattering class that has perhaps grown weary of the cretinous Julius Malema, now the single, overarching symbol of our public life, Botes’ admission, in an interview with Rapport, that she disliked black people because she was scared of them was a welcome diversion, and we fell upon her as if she was the sushi on the girls at Kenny Kunene’s place.
She was, in short, an ignorant racist. Granted, they said, she may be an award-winning novelist, but she was nevertheless an imbecile who had no place among us and should leave the country at once.
There came a deafening and perhaps predictably hypocritical clamour from the usual gang of white commentators who fell over themselves in a self-righteous rush to point out that, no, not all white people were like Botes, and that some were so different, they were even rather special. Bearded sage types like themselves, in fact.
It’s true that much of what Botes had to say about black people was nonsense. Her suggestion that violent crime showed blacks, as a group, were “angry because of their own incompetence” is, frankly, crap. Alarmingly -- for a writer, at least -- she appeared to have no grasp of our history. This is what happens, I suppose, when you live in Port Elizabeth, the singularly most isolated and cloistered white community south of the retirement villages of Bournemouth. But that is another issue for another time, perhaps.
Distressingly, there are those who endorse Botes’ views, who believe her crackpot theories are valid. But we err, perhaps, when we dismiss those who defend her right to freedom of expression as being racist as well. And, here’s a thing, I believe Botes was at least honest in expressing her views, however retarded they may be. It may have made us all feel a whole lot more comfortable, but would it have been better if she had lied?
Which brings me to a point -- what my response would have been if someone had asked me: “Who or what do you fear?” Several probable answers spring almost immediately to mind. Disease, loneliness, violence. All in all, prosaic stuff, and nothing too exciting there, really, so perhaps a better question would be: “What should we fear?”
What about politicians? Should we fear them?
Hmmm. Tricky. Certainly, we should despise politicians, and it is probably our duty to do so. We must keep them at a distance, and at all times deny them access to places where the innocent and the weak are gathered. Schools and hospitals especially.
At worst, politicians are greedy sociopaths and at best . . . well, there is no best. They lie. They steal. They cheat. They are unable to experience any degree of shame. They would sell their own mothers for a packet of cigarettes. Their concern with our wellbeing is that of a fox towards a crippled chicken. And, perhaps their most loathsome attribute -- how they love to bang on and on, like a stuck record, about the national interest.
Think about it. Why must we have a media appeals tribunal, and punish journalists and writers? It’s in the national interest. Why must we have a debate about the role of the media in a post-apartheid democratic society -- a debate, incidentally, in which journalists’ views will almost certainly not be welcome or even considered? It’s in the national interest.
Why the wholesale looting of the country’s mineral resources? Why the shady deals? The nepotism and favours for friends that bedevils our business culture? Why the lack of transparency in our corporate life? It’s in the national interest.
Why must there be moral regeneration? Why all the pastorpreneurs trysting with the gang of thieves in Luthuli House? Why the resurgent discussion about the need for religion in the curricula of our schools? It’s in the national interest.
Why the much-vaunted return to traditional values? Why do we need unelected traditional leaders? Why do we continue to squander public money on parasite kings and feudal royal houses in a constitutional democracy? It’s in the national interest.
The same goes for the the blue-light convoys, the fat salaries, the luxury cars and the costly trips abroad. Ditto the extra ministers and deputy minsters with the result that we have a cabinet that has grown at much the same rate as the girth of Khulubuse Zuma, the president’s Jabba the Hut-like nephew?
The national interest? Fear it.
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