Black Tuesday

“A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” John F. Kennedy

There are times when silence is a virtue. 

Like when your wife asks if her bum looks big in this.

There are times when secrets are best kept. 

Like if you are a fan of Justin Bieber.

This is not one of those times.

Today is Black Tuesday. 

Weirdly enough that was also the name of the day that marked the start of the Great Depression. Regardless, I look like a large dissatisfied black bat of gloom today.

However, this Tuesday is so named because on the 19th October 1977, the Apartheid government banned a number of publications, people and organisations involved with black consciousness. It became known as Black Wednesday.

Today the South African parliament will vote on the Protection of State Information Bill or as it more popularly known, the Secrecy Bill. If passed it will effectively muzzle the media and hobble any attempt to expose the cancer of fraud, embezzlement and corruption that is at the heart of our government.

No government should ever be in control of the media, although they all try because for obvious reasons it is a very powerful tool to placate the masses. Desmond Tutu summed it up very well by calling it an insult to all South Africans.

History repeats itself. I just was not expecting it to repeat itself so soon. During the time Nelson Mandela was in prison, not a single photograph of him existed in South Africa. The first time most of us saw him, was the day he walked out of prison. His face was regarded as a threat to state security.

What state secrets do we have that are so vital to security that we need to hide them? In all honesty if we were in a time of war, perhaps this bill might have legs to stand on, but it is built on decidedly shaky ground right now. 

The ANC published this peculiar diatribe on their website today: 

http://www.anc.org.za/docs/anctoday/2011/at44.htm#art1

Apparently, the bill is intended to crack down those pesky international spies that plague us. 

What on earth are they spying on? 

Our total ineptitude? 

“The foreign spies continue to steal our sensitive information in order to advantage their nations at the expense of advancement of South Africa and her people. However, you won't find foreign spies openly marching in the streets of Cape Town complaining that we are removing their easy access to our sensitive information.”

I quite like the idea of spies marching down the road actually – a sort of James Bond meets Austin Powers convention.

I hasten to suggest we have more of a problem from Nigerian drug lords gunning down PTA moms in the street, but that might get me sent to jail for some 25 years.  

If it were really intended to protect terribly important state secrets, it might have some credibility. But it isn’t. 

It’s designed to protect corrupt little backstabbers so they can carry on lying to the voting population who they view in much the same way as I view the ruling party – as a bunch of total idiots. 

Shouldn’t politicians, municipalities, tenderpreneurs and so on be held accountable? 

After all, it is my money they are spending on their big BMWs and mansions in Saxonwold. If some bint takes her family and friends to buy blood diamonds in Angola and I have to foot the bill for her chartered jet, do I not have the right to be a little miffed?

Of course back in the day they only had to worry about carrier pigeons, TV, radio and print journalists. These days you’ve got social networking, blogs, the Internet and virtual smoke signals. 

No doubt the next step will be following our new BFFs the Chinese into an Internet crackdown. 

After that we’ll probably start burning books. 

 

Here's what Nelson Mandela had to say on the topic in 1994:

"Criticism can only help us to grow, by calling attention of those of our actions and omissions, which do not measure up to our people's expectations and the democratic values to which we subscribe." 

Madiba and the doo-wap girls

Nelson Mandela The Musical in three parts. Good heavens, can we trivialise the life of this great man any more than by turning it into a singing, dancing extravaganza? I don’t think its much of a tribute, I think it is a farce. You wouldn’t turn the persecution of the Jews into a musical would you? No, because that would be insensitive and inappropriate, but we can do it to Nelson Mandela.

I also seem to be one of the few utterly disgusted by the obsession with his death. It seems the media and most of South Africa is waiting for him to die so they eulogise him. The fact that he is still alive and kicking seems almost to irritate them; after all they have so much planned for when he dies. Yes, he is very old. Yes, he is closer to the grave than the cradle, but go carry on harping about it is at best insensitive and at worst utterly macabre.

My son aged 6 believes that Madiba is always happy. The only time he is not is when a small child is hurt. Death and SARS. They come for us all, but neither are things we like to dwell on in much detail. My mother is a pensioner. Yesterday she took my offspring to the Montecasino Bird Park, a place that holds them in thrall for hours.

At the entrance Small boy aged 9 reads the sign and says to the ticket seller, “1 adult and 3 children, please.”
Grandmother: “No, darling, I am not an adult, I am a pensioner, over here” she says pointing to the sign.
Small boy aged 9 reads it carefully and says loudly, “Sorry, 3 children and one prisoner then.”
The queue erupted into laughter and one elderly man turned to her and commiserated, “Not much difference is there really between being a pensioner or a prisoner?”
I suppose not, in some way or another we’re all waiting for parole.

Of llamas and lamas

Llama

Lama


The ambiguity of the English language is what lends it its wealth. It’s why irony and sarcasm have such power. It’s the foundation of wit and wisdom. It’s why I laughed until tears ran in rivers down my face, streaking my carefully applied mascara until I resembled a demented panda.

Driving along the road something clunked onto the top of the car.
Man startled: “What was that?”
Small boy aged 9: “Maybe it was an alpaca?”
Me disbelievingly: “An alpaca?”
Small boy aged 6 curiously: “What’s an alpaca?”
Man knowledgeably: “It’s like a llama only it’s from South America.”
Small boy aged 9: “Where are llama’s from?”
Man with certainty: “Tibet”
Me: “Um, actually I think they’re both from South America.”
Man beginning to have doubts, “But they do have llamas in Tibet?”
Me: “Yes, they do, only they’re Tibetan lamas not llamas.”
Man: “I knew that.”
Of course baby. Of course.

All in all I have enjoyed some strange conversations with my family over the last few days. Each day I struggle to eke out from my offspring what they achieved at school. Yesterday Small boy aged 6 amused me with this story.

Small boy aged 6: “Today Daniel and I played together.”
Me: “Really, what did you play?”
Small boy aged 6: “Well, I had gloves with spiders on them, so I could shoot spider venom and he had gloves with lightning bolts so he could shoot red lasers.”
Me: “Uh huh, and then what?”
Small boy aged 6: “Well we were on a spaceship and we crashed onto this planet filled with alien women.”
Me getting interested, “And how did you deal with that?”
Small boy aged 6: “It was terrifying! They surrounded us and held us prisoner. So we had to escape and they ran after us. Then we shot them in the butt with laser beams and spider venom until we made it back to the ship and escaped.”

Wow. He’s six and already fantasizing about being held captive by hundreds of nubile young ladies. God help me when he’s thirteen.

This is his portrait of Nelson Mandela.

It seems he is one of the minority in his class who know that Mandela is no longer our State President. None of them to know whom Jacob Zuma or Thabo Mbeki are. Funny, I also find them infinitely forgettable. I only hope our economy will too.

Footnote: There has been a bizarre amount of traffic on this post. Is there a sudden interest in Llamas or Lamas? Very strange. Comments welcomed in order to satisfy my curiosity. I've posted some more tidbits about llamas, not Tibetan monks with some more pictures from around and about.