Ready or not, here they come

I guess it's something I should've gotten used to months ago. Lazy headlines murmur for the 800th time in a week 'SA ready for the World Cup' followed by my eyes rolling back into my head, my tongue descending down my throat and foam developing into frothy fountains around my mouth. People, people, people, can we maybe find something else to dilute this dangerous optimism with in the media? I cringe when I read anything to do with the World Cup, these days. I develop rashes and amid Tourettes moments I belch out profanities, damning FIFA, cursing Danny Jordaan and yelping in anguish at the sight of that strange lion/cheetah/monkey hybrid of a mascot for the soccer tournament, Sashimi or something. But, again, I should have become inured to this mania and should embrace it. I, however won't embrace the lies.
So, its understandable the powers-that-be hammer home the message of hope and optimism, mangling words of encouragement into political-talk ('As government we welcome this sporting extravaganza in so far as it actually as a matter of fact from the point of departure to where we can safely assure the masses... blah, blah, fish paste'). But can't they be more circumspect with the language they use. Apart from blisteringly dull rhetoric, I feel they need to water down the optimism. I've heard on a number occasions politicians and bureaucrats state it'll be the best World Cup ever. Really?! Forever ever? Better than Germany, the uber-power of planning, punctuality and order? Oh for crying in a bucket. We can't match Germany's take on the event. It's clear and simple, we just don't have that kind of wealth and experience. It's going to be a tough act to follow. As a Third World country SA should be commended for how far its come in its preparations. I honestly never thought we'd get this far. Bravo. However, we need to approach the World Cup from the perspective of - it'll be an event on African soil done the African way. In other words, it's going to have an element of disorganisation and chaos to it. Not the bad kind, just the non-punctual, ill-prepared, arrogant kind. It's going to be flawed, but only as imperfect as say a bus being late, tickets running out, maybe even a strike or two, you know, logistical and social issues which shape the African way of life. But we can't be blamed for all the looming problems. You can be sure a Japanese tourist will be mugged in Gugulethu or some God forsaken place like that because he/she felt the need to cart an Apple Mac, iPod, camera and cell phone with on a 'tour' of the township. The Germans will complain about the pitches not being cut precisely enough to suit their national tendency towards being pedantic about everything. The English will drink too much, some of them will wind up sunburnt (even though it'll be in the thick of winter). Expect a few Dutch visitors to be ripped off by our ladies-of-the-night. The Americans will walk around, gobsmacked and amazed by the buildings, roads and lack of wild animals roaming our streets. The Spanish... well, they'll just be Spanish.
So, are we in fact ready... for this touring international freak show poised and ready to take on the World Cup? I don't think any country has ever been ready for the fans.

Suntanning our White tendencies

'Don't come here with that white tendency!' blustered and barked Jules Malema at a rather bemused BBC journalist recently, sending out yet another wave of shock and disbelief through a fragile, confused country. White tendency? As opposed to a black, pink, blue, slightly maroon, eggshell white, burgundy or azure tendency? Does he mean a tendency painted pale white so it will stick out amid his grungy, murky green tendency? Green because Jules' tendencies are, as his Daddies and Mommies in the ANC have pathetically tried to justify in the past, are still growing in that perturbing, puzzling garden patch of stupidity in Luthuli House, which is so openly and enthusiastically nurtured by equally-stupefying morons.
So, here's how I interpret Jules' colour scheme of tendencies. When he gave us people of European, colonial, capitalist descent a fresh coat of paint, he was trying to make us understand our actions and tendencies need some serious sun tanning because we don't seem to get out often enough to understand how his black tendencies(which were probably charred by his hellish racist fury. Careful Jules, you may develop cancereous growths on your tendencies). I'm very apprehensive about tanning my lilly white tendencies for fear of trunign them into leather and getting cancer.
As far as I have been able to ascertain his views are really not shared by as many real people as he thinks. His tendencies are ones which ignore his superiors, who are only now trying to rein him. His tendency to insult, offend and disgust a growing number of lucid-minded South Africans. His inclination to lurch from one incomprehensible crusade to the next. His ability to fumble through mindless issues and needlessly undo the good work which we as citizens have achieved over the past 16-years in trying to buy into true transformation, which exists outside of Malema's backward-thinking brain.
Does he deprive our Caucasian tendencies of primary colours (at the very least) because he's so idiotic he can't seem to think beyond his limited colour scheme as he's utterly obsessed with race? Does he maybe resent us Whiteys so much that he labours and harbours on this issue of race to such an extent that he is portraying himself as a the real racist devil in the details in the same ironic mold as Eugene Terre'blanche? I'm inclined to agree with this latter hypothesis.
Perhaps subconsciously he's taking out deep-seated anger on those who don't speak Pedi because he's pissed off that he didn't play a real part in the liberation struggle and so doesn't have genuine credentials which can be taken seriously. I believe he's jealous of the likes of Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu (who were able to set aside their anger in the interests of a bigger more important agenda - nation building). And so Malema rants, blusters and belches out insults, giving a voice to his own, personal issues (paging Dr. Freud, we reaaalllyyy need your help!), which if looked at closely are so clouded in hatred towards, not just White people, but anyone who isn't black, that he's crafting a new racial schism in this country. It reminds me of a certain person who had a bone to pick with a certain section section of humanity who he wasn't so fond of because they weren't like him. A man called Adolf Hitler didn't like anyone apart from blue-eyed, blonde-haired German-speaking people (even though his hair follicles were visibly brown in colour). It may be an extreme conflation, but in essence the two are alike in the sense they share a narrow-minded outlook on life, like Hitler, Jules is not very intelligent. They both share charisma and oratory skills that can whip up a frenzy in no time. And just like Hitler was. Malema seems completely preoccupied with race, so much so it's disturbing and destructive.
Sieg heil Julius Malema!

Relax, don't do it!

Let's spare a sad thought for South Africa's dying sanity. A two minute silence may suffice. I propose a week long mourning for our national hope and collective intelligence which has taken a dive to the depths of something not so lekker of late.
So I pour another drink and seek the solace of my crammed balcony to again ponder where we are as a nation, supposedly on the brink of calamity. Well, in short it's not looking look. That much is true. But look on the waning bright side of it all - Mugabe's long-lost homie, Jules Mal-ema (for those non-Afrikaans-speaking comrades 'Mal' is Boeretaal for mad) has finally been spanked (YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!). The Dad of the country, Zuma, has tried again to rope some rationality back into the picture. Umm, what else have we still got going for us? Oh, yes, The Bulls are back at the top of the log. We had a windless weekend here in the Zille-stan of Cape Town (always a good thing!!!). It's the small things, people, we have to look to for comfort when the four horseman oour ever-impending apocalypse are cantering along the horizon.
But all isn't as it should be, that remains a hard truth in this day and age. Should we be alarmed? The simple, short answer is - no. In the words of your average dreadlocked, shoe-hating Capetonian, 'Look bru, just chill'. Sage words from the mooouuutain's most cherished fan club. While I'd usually stomp on such a hippie's head with reckless glee and abandon, I'm inclined to take a step back from my natural acts of violence to consider this airy-fairy assurance and logic. I'm sick and tired of all the gloom. Our own homegrown Hitler (R.I.P. ET) is dead. He's gone, but his gang of 16 followers will still grumble into their Klipdrifts and plot half-arsed coups. So what?!!!! Let them.
Jules has been scolded (although I doubt he'll stay quiet for too long). While he hasn't been literally muzzled, at least there's been a relatively unambigous reponse to his bililious stupidity The World Cup is still coming, regardless of what the rest of the globe is saying. We still have to fight off criminals from our gates. The poor still clamour to our windows at red traffic lights. Eskom is still in the poo. The devil wind of the Cape will continue to ravage us. Petrol is still way to expensive and my grandmother still can't operate her cellphone. Biltong is still readily available. There's a mix of bad and good, which us South Africans should've become inured to over the many years of uncertainty (which we still pervade and will do so for centuries to come).
We have to open up our windows (unless being choked by the bullshit is your kind of thing) or else we will lose sight of the rest of the world. yes, it does exist! We have a part in this globe, which exists independently of Malema, Terre'blanche, the ANC and the World Cup.
However, let's not dig holes for heads. Let's not uses lame excuses and petty justifications. Let's do our best to guard against the temptations of pouring stiff drinks or rolling fatter joints to cope with our national headaches.Let's try to refrain from racing to the nearest Australian embassy with passports and briefcases stuffed with cash in hand. And for God's sakes let's stop giving Malema and the AWB the time of day.
Move on people, there's nothing more to see here at this aging, bloodstained, car wreck which has become the last few days of our history.

Release the hounds (and the releases)!

I find these days I'm reluctant to simply glide my mouse to the delete icon when weed through the slew of press releases I receive daily from everyone and his dog (or so it seems on those dark Mondays). As a journalist I'm on the mailing list of pretty much all political parties (those who count and can count anyway) so as to keep a tab on things and, you never know, I may even come across a story. But I also have to unfortunately bear witness to the destruction of the English language by the likes of the ANC Youth League, Young Communist league and a host of one-man-and-a-fax-machine bodies who feel the need to react to anything and everything by virtually spamming journalists e-mail accounts. From the banal to the surreal, there's a press release for almost every occasion. If you hate capitalism give the Young Communist league a shout. If you hate colonialist, imperialists, well take your pick. There's the ANC Youth League, COSATU, the Anti-Privatisation Forum. For the paranoid white market there's Solidarity, the Freedom Front Plus.
Most of these organisations have a vent through which they can shovel their gargled, misguided sense of issues into their press releases, which if for nothing else, makes for entertaining reading.
"The concept of 'National Democratic Revolution' emerged from within Marxism-Leninism of it's analysis of the unfolding of national revolutions in the 20Th century.... zzzzzzzzzzz'. Snore, yawn. Now unlike most press releases from the National Union of Metalworkers of SA the scribe of this particular one from which I quote found the spell check button really quickly. An A for effort for Castro (that's apparently his real name) Ngobese (who cut his teeth in other 'Revolutionary' bodies like the Young Communist League). But as yet there's no function on computers to weed out stupidity. So Castor goes on fro about 4 million more paragraphs 'analysing' Marxism and plotting the downfall of capitalist pigs. Barely 2 more sentences into the release in question my mind started wandering into thoughts of suicide (not to worry, the Prozac was close by) as boredom gripped me by the crown jewels.
These groupings love the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital. They endlessly seek out abstruse quotes which end up being nothing but obtuse. They then mangle the English language into unthinkable shapes. I suspect this is done deliberately to piss White people off. But let me not add to the liberal stoking of the racial fires of our time.
Sure, English is the first language of the likes of Castro and his convoy of comrades in the ANC Youth League. But surely if you want anyone (please raise your hand, if you dare) to take you seriously you'll take the time to do a quick spell check, at the very least, or finding a dictionary before firing off press release after press release attacking, scolding, blaming everyone in the world who doesn't share their mindlessness.
On the other side of the moron barricade are the not so right right-wing. 'There is a clear need for debate on this racist issue where we can talk across to each other about things in our mind" reads the one sentence from an unnecessarily verbose statement from a farmers union. I couldn't read past the first sentence as a migraine (initially induced by Castro's ranting) firmly took root, preventing my brain from tolerating anymore. Then we have police press statements. 'The alleged suspect was shot on the shoulder. He then fleed (sic) and is still on the lose (sic)'. Should I even go any further?
These days before pushing the delete icon I make point of gathering my colleagues around my PC so I can share these colourful statements. Peels of laughter follow and the true nature of most of these organisations who feel nothing about thinking before writing is revealed in all it's mad, ugly, misguided and worrying glory.

There's a world outside our stupidity

Wow, do we live in interesting times. I really thought khaki had died out a long time ago along with the Ford Cortina and the Pan Africanist Congress. But recent events in this "smartie box" country of ours, a.k.a. The Old New South African Republic of Azania and Like-Minded States or Orania, has pulled the curtain down on, not just deep-seated racism, prejudice, intolerance and a total lack of inhibition, but also alarming levels of gullibility.
"I'm glad he's dead. I'm going to drink beer and celebrate" blurted out an onlooker at the murder scene of Eugene Terre'blanche (or ET as he's adorably referred to by his 16 remaining supporters). On the other side of the barbed wire fencing, resplendent in his toight-as-a-toiger khaki shorts someone called Dirkie, Koos, uhhhh... Gert or something like that belted out Die Stem, the Klipdrift fumes hanging heavy around his moustache. Guess who's side he's on? As racial slurs are traded, mumbled into their rage, amid spittle and foam, in the small and now not so forgotten town of Ventersdorp, the very obvious question still hangs in the air, waiting for a moment of sanity so as to be answered - Don't these people have better things to do? Sure, it's a gruesome murder at the centre of this debacle, which must not be condoned. Sure, ET was a (high-profile, depending on the day of the year) individual who was murdered. Okay, so we clearly all still have issues relating to racism, which our therapists, faith healers, counsellors, teachers, parents, political leaders, etc. couldn't and will never adequately address. But surely, we can all take a step back and just calm our minds for a second or ten. ET was a despicable individual. As despicable as Julius Malema, as horrid as Verwoerd and as hated as Mugabe. I'm not saying we should pop the champagne in celebration of his death or the fact "Shoot the Boer" is now "officially" banned. But we have to take a look at what he stood for, the anachronistic nature of his politics, his history. It's ludicrous, backward, asinine, base, idiotic and dangerous. As are the mindless views of Julius and the myriad of confounding tirades he's launched in the past on everyone who is Julius. There wsa no space for the AWB in this "new" country of ours. There's certainly very little patience left for Malema's loquacious, puzzling outbursts. There's always a balance to the stupidity being liberally perpetuated by followers of both the left and right. That's there right, granted, but come on, is that a right we want to even air, to give substance to and to allow to linger and pollute intelligence?
I invite those of you clinging on to your intelligence and rationality, step inside my camp and savour the breath of fresh air that accompanies the freedom from this futility of madness and blind faith. In this camp we welcome selective apathy, which I we should enforce amid these climates of rage and puerile justifications. From here we can point and laugh at those dimwits, the wannabe-Vootrekkers and Stalinists, the pretend-revolutionaries and commandos, who poke their heads out of their laagers and political rallies to proudly proclaim their glaringly obvious ignorance.
I don't doubt we have loads of issue to wade through over the next thousand years. Most of us love postulating views and pontificating about where South Africa is going. We are a nation which loves to debate. And that's great. But can we just expurgate these debates from terrains where the likes of the "newly revitalised AWB" and Malema prefer to piss out their racist, myopic and pointless garbage.