Bring me my machine gun

If you think the heckling of Patricia De Lille at a Human Rights Day rally in Cape Town is preposterous, outrageous and uncalled for, think again. It's par for the course as we enter election time once again. This means we're all expected to lose our minds (those of us who hadn't already lost them)."This kind of behaviour doesn't promote tolerance of any other persons idea," half-heartedly droned an ANC MP in the national assembly in reaction to the incident. We know, buddy, politics is all about hugging trees, making nice with everyone and clapping hands cheerfully as if we were all at a scripture union camp. What the brain says, the hand doesn't necessarily do. So, if Luthuli House, that great national think tank of the ruling party, says make love not war, then of course it would be safe to say, this could be interpreted as, beat the crap out of anyone not wearing yellow, green and black. And that's what the ANC seems to relish in doing when confronted with elections. Except, it's beating itself up, instead. The rise of independent candidates from within it's own ranks is all the evidence you need that the party's arrogance is it's own worst enemy. Forget opposition parties. This time round, COSATU boss, Zwelinzima Vavi, even remarked "They are showing the ANC the middle finger". Careful. That kind of behaviour towards the ANC is could land you up in the back seat of a luxury, black SUV, commandeered by black suited goons, with silly little wires connected to their ears. A political ouma like Patty De Lille, knows the drill when confronted by heckling - just ignore it, because it gets worse. It's one of the few times where adults (supposed adults, at that,because going into politics is about as childish as eating snot) will abandon their adulthood. being able to tie your own shoelaces and count to 10 means nothing in the world of politics. Wait for it. When the rallies, community meetings, door-to-door campaign go into warp speed those political loafers and morons who drain our coffers, waffle all day but rarely make sense, those characters who are meant to run our country, will exchange their Gucci suits and Jimmy Choos for party t-shirts as they try to convince us we should waste... I mean, cast our votes for them. They'll dance and sing as they promise and deride each other. They'll fling mud in all directions except of course at themselves. They'll scorn, deplore, praise and tease each other. hey, it's every parties unspoken election manifesto - skulduggery, pettiness and stupidity. All eyes on Julius over this period, that King of bluster has already demonstrated his wily ability at being an idiot. Helen Zille was a cockroach last time round. Now she's a monkey. Shame, she'd din't get the memo - whitey's should never, ever dance. I have no idea how COPE will try to campaign. Lekota on a donkey cart with a loudhailer, might be above the party's budget. If donkey carts and megaphones are being dished out to his comrade, Shilowa may have to settle for a bicycle, one placard and a whistle simply to draw what little attention there is for COPE to him. Good luck pal. Come what may for COPE, one things for sure, they won't need to canvass against opposition parties. They seem quite happy at contesting their own make-believe elections among themselves.

The Battle of the Colours

There's a war in my pocket and it's bursting to get out. I can hear the agonising screams of the casualties (those who couldn't keep their mouths shut), the staccato of machine gunfire (their asinine comments), the rumbling of artillery fire (counter-comments and even more stupidity).The front line is drawing ever closer. Our 'Battle of the Bulge', with the enemy before us, behind us, everywhere! Derision and insults whizz by. Duck! Take cover! That was yet another close call!
No, friends, I'm not writing this from Libya or the Ivory Coast. I'm not hunkered down in a hotel room in Iraq, nor am I 'embedded' with allied forces in Afghanistan. The banal 'bunker' setting of my desk is where I'm waiting for the the 'enemy'. The problem is, much like the ironic paranoia sketched by J.M. Coetzee in 'Waiting for the Barbarians', I'm not too sure who the enemy actually is. I still haven't decided if it's even the traditional kind of foe.
Kuli Roberts marched out onto the battlefield, possibly still drunk from a previous victory (or party, more like it). She opened her mouth, stupid things were discharged like cannon shells and they exploded in glorious fashion. Roberts, ever the headline-junkie, inadvertently declared war on on an entire race, Coloured people, following on from a separate conflict sparked by the new lieutenant in charge of government miscommunication, Jimmy Manyi. His 'Oversupply of Coloureds in the Western Cape' was a quasi-diplomatic gaffe of note, one which would ensure peace talks between Black people and Coloured people remain strained in the Cape. Behind the Manyi debacle is a lilly-white, centre-right trade union, Solidarity. The organisation could easily be labelled an agitator for war, along with Manyi and Roberts. But my cynicism tells me it was simply a cheap publicity ploy. It was Solidarity which alerted all and sundry to Manyi's infamous comments. So, in my extended war metaphor, the union could be seen as Italy during WW2 - a nowhere little nation, keen to get in on a major conflict so as to raise it's profile. We all know how that worked out for Italy in the end. Everyone from Trevor Manuel, the ANCYL, DA and the ice cream seller on Clifton beach is now firing off their weapon-cum-mouths, more to make a noise and a nuisance of themselves than to actually hurt anyone. And this low-level, theoretical 'Race War' is playing itself out minus the likes of the maddened influence of a crazy Whitey like Eugene Terre'Blanche! Bizarre. Who needs the right, when the left, is becoming right? All the while us ordinary mlungus stand on the outskirts of the battlefield, perplexed, worried and confused. You mean we aren't to blame for this furore? You mean know one has tried to pin theisbitterly ugly racial spat on us? Even more bizarre. From our trenches, us Whitey's nervously peer over the edge, scouring this dirty landscape of non-sequiturs, racial innuendoes and hilariously unfunny stereotypes.
Is it a coincidence this watered-down war is taking place amid an election year? Is it a coincidence the stage for this mindless conflict is the Cape, where the DA is still struggling to win the hearts and minds of black voters, and where the so-called 'Coloured vote' is as sought after as as a cushy government job (uhum, paging Mr. Manyi)? All I know is that this White boy ain't coming up from his bunker just yet.