In honour of your vote, I thee razzmatazz you

There is a Minister in this cabinet of our beloved country, South Africa. His name is known to many. He is the only one who stands out on this one. Yes, I admit, that there are many now and before who've blasted us with hollow speeches and left us transfixed with big words. But I doff my hat to this particular one.

He is Minister of bombastic words and dizzying phrases. You know, he reminds me of those of us who used to attend SRC and Student Body meetings with dictionaries in our hands. Let me take you back in time...

...When somebody would raise the hand to be noted by Chairperson in that round of questions (that is if they did not smuggle themselves into the discussion by calling an in-appropriate "Order.")

Once noted by Chairperson, the comrade would bury his head into something he’s holding under a desk, raise his head every now and then to follow the points coming up from those speaking ahead of him, while impatiently waiting for his turn to ask a question, or to make a point.

You'd not be so sure of what it is he is busy with under the desk until the platform has been accorded to him. Then the moment would arrive. Comrade would sting everybody with big, big words, and not really make sense in the process.

No-no-no, If comrade was asking a question, he’d begin with a 75 second-long preamble. By the time he got to asking the question, it’d be time-up. Rival comrades would call Order, demanding him to sit down. Comrade Preamble, not wanting to be undermined, would call a counter-Order, ‘Chairperson, can I be protected here from these howlers?’ he’d say.

I keep saying “He” because mostly it would be guys doing this. Women often cut to the chase, and mostly left the comrade they were talking to bleeding, in a political sense, and the rest of the Student Body rolling on the floor. They hardly had time for rhetoric and stroking of egos. A lot of time got wasted in those meetings. How do you explain a Student Parliament which started at 17h00, only to end at 00h55, and even then merely because the students need to sleep ahead of another grueling academic day?

I have witnessed these speak-oxford incidents many times. One day, Comrade Jasibaya put his Oxford what-you-call-it in his chair, pulled himself erect, slid the right hand inside his pocket, used his left index finger to punch the air, and asserted that if we did not challenge management's unilateral decision to increase academic fees, "the status-quo shall remain the status-quo!"

Yes, we sat there, wandering, which status-quo is which? Another comrade, confused by what we’ve just heard, called "Order." 'There is order from Comrade Neheti,' said Madam Chairperson.

'Chairperson,' he said, with all the seriousness he could muster, 'I think I want to call Order on Comrade Jasibaya... to say that he is forcing us to bring our own Oxford dictionaries to SRC meetings.' The boardroom became a scene of full-on guffaw.

Today I look at some of the up and coming political leaders who were part of these shenanigans back in the day, and I shudder to think that they will soon be very influential leaders in various capacities. They will be “razzmatazz-ing” us to no end. And these are the leaders who want a vote from the people, some of whom have no idea what "decayed rogues with dubious means of subsistence and of dubious origin…” means.