It is
Thursday evening. You are sitting at home, and trying very hard to ignore the
Oscar Pistorius-type of news. You don’t even want to hear what Hlaudi
Motsoeneng has been up to since the day he came out with guns blazing,
threatening to take legal action over the Public Protector’s report on the
SABC… on him, actually.
So you avoid the news channels, because really, you don’t understand why the Gauteng Premier is stealing the show at the trial by “showing support” to Reeva Steenkamp’s mother. You try to ignore this by visiting facebook. You are looking for light-hearted updates from friends who never disappoint.
Alas. Javas Xanti is updating about Jesus. He is clearly not on humorous form. Zimbini Madikwa has been missing for two weeks, allegedly after drinking bottled water with hordes of tenderpreneurs in Limpopo. And Matela Mthwalo is suffering exhaustion over Vavi-COSATU showdown. Indeed it must be tiring to keep ordering S’dumo Dlamini to go to hell when he cannot even hear you.
You stumble
upon Sandile Memela’s update. He flings you back to where you came from. He is employing
his blog to tell Mrs. Khumalo why madam Premier is not showing support to her. Because ‘Mrs Khumalo, your daughter is not
Reeva,’ concludes Memela. Mrs. Khumalo is mourning the death of her daughter,
Zanele Khumalo, who was strangled by her boyfriend, Thato Kutumela, at their
home in Garsfontein. The murder trial is happening right next door to where
Oscar is being swarmed, morning and afternoon, by stampeding media mob.
Sandile Memela sometimes admits that he suffers from RFD (Race Fatigue Disease). I don’t know what that is. So your eyes wander off his blog. You feel that this case of bathroom murder, with all its celebrity attitude, defence Lawyers showing off their mettle in front of cameras, and white supremacy connotations propelling it to prominence, has a long way to go and therefore you will let it exhaust itself.
So you log off facebook. You walk past the bathroom, which you don’t even want to enter into because, hey, places like these are not safe anymore. So you hold it in. And with the speed of any Olympic blade-runner, you reach for the remote controller.
Your options are limited. The sport channel is repeating that game everybody want to forget - the 5 nil hammering at the hands of Brazil. Forget that already there is war on whether the president of the country got booed or not. The Minister of Sports confirms the incident. He does it in style. This time he is not bashing “a bunch of losers.” They know what he thinks of them already. He is telling those who love “bunch of losers”, even in these tough times, that their booing actions directed at his Boss, in these glorious political times, are satanic.
You are sitting there and thinking: the Bafana Bafana games are bad for Minister’s health. How about he stays away next time our encounter with Ghana or Germany leaves us with a 7 – 0 hammering? Yes, Nigeria gave us 3 (equals “bunch of losers.”) Brazil added 2 to make it 5 (equals “satanic supporters.”). So, you do the math. And only God knows what the Minister will say.
Sandile Memela sometimes admits that he suffers from RFD (Race Fatigue Disease). I don’t know what that is. So your eyes wander off his blog. You feel that this case of bathroom murder, with all its celebrity attitude, defence Lawyers showing off their mettle in front of cameras, and white supremacy connotations propelling it to prominence, has a long way to go and therefore you will let it exhaust itself.
So you log off facebook. You walk past the bathroom, which you don’t even want to enter into because, hey, places like these are not safe anymore. So you hold it in. And with the speed of any Olympic blade-runner, you reach for the remote controller.
Your options are limited. The sport channel is repeating that game everybody want to forget - the 5 nil hammering at the hands of Brazil. Forget that already there is war on whether the president of the country got booed or not. The Minister of Sports confirms the incident. He does it in style. This time he is not bashing “a bunch of losers.” They know what he thinks of them already. He is telling those who love “bunch of losers”, even in these tough times, that their booing actions directed at his Boss, in these glorious political times, are satanic.
You are sitting there and thinking: the Bafana Bafana games are bad for Minister’s health. How about he stays away next time our encounter with Ghana or Germany leaves us with a 7 – 0 hammering? Yes, Nigeria gave us 3 (equals “bunch of losers.”) Brazil added 2 to make it 5 (equals “satanic supporters.”). So, you do the math. And only God knows what the Minister will say.
Before
you flip to movie channels, you check out international news. Ukraine. There is
ongoing showdown between the U.S.A and Russia over this. President Viktor
Yanukovich, whom Vladimir Putin prefers, was removed. The Americans say he desert
his post, much to their delight, obviously. What is funny is that Yanukovich
himself is comparing this alleged “coup d’etat” with the 1930 Nazi-style of
grabbing power. You go off in a raucous laughter, because Hilary Clinton has
just stood up to compare Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler for sending his war
machinery into Ukraine, and then she sat down, giving Obama the stage to stare
down his Russian foe.
You also realise that the Syrian altercation by the two presidents has merely shifted to a cold Europe, with Bashar al-Assad returning a huge favour of protection to Putin by backing Russia on the stand-off. Obama is threatening sanctions. Putin is threatening to halt the assets and gas supplies in the America-friendly Europe in the western/northern side of former communist bloc.
You are still trying to pull yourself back to the couch after a satisfying, but devilish laughter (because this is not a laughing matter), when Studio Universal floods your white-washed brain with The Marksman. Wesley Snipes is some round-house kicking ring-leader who descends upon enemy territory with a handful of trigger-happy guys to bring bloody justice to a Russian war lord who violently seized a nuclear facility with intention to wipe the American interests out of existence. So Wesley Snipes, just like Sandile Memela has done to you, is flinging you back to the news you are running away from. Now you find yourself in the middle of a huge propaganda, home and away.
You also realise that the Syrian altercation by the two presidents has merely shifted to a cold Europe, with Bashar al-Assad returning a huge favour of protection to Putin by backing Russia on the stand-off. Obama is threatening sanctions. Putin is threatening to halt the assets and gas supplies in the America-friendly Europe in the western/northern side of former communist bloc.
You are still trying to pull yourself back to the couch after a satisfying, but devilish laughter (because this is not a laughing matter), when Studio Universal floods your white-washed brain with The Marksman. Wesley Snipes is some round-house kicking ring-leader who descends upon enemy territory with a handful of trigger-happy guys to bring bloody justice to a Russian war lord who violently seized a nuclear facility with intention to wipe the American interests out of existence. So Wesley Snipes, just like Sandile Memela has done to you, is flinging you back to the news you are running away from. Now you find yourself in the middle of a huge propaganda, home and away.
Well writen, I ll drink to that!South Africa is full of loosers!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Zimbini.
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