Letters to the best man
Chez Uhuru
228 Musgrave Road
iThekwini
To: Dr Essop Pahad
The Presidency
Union Buildings
Tshwane
Dear Dr Pahad,
I was shocked on Sunday night to view, in the security of my own home, a television news report that Tokyo Sexwale has now been appointed as an Honorary Colonel in the South African Air Force. Only the nave would fail to appreciate the significance of this sinister development. A military coup is in the offing. Here we are, committing billions to purchase fighter-jets which, in next to no time, will be under the command of our enemies. To add to our woes, I hear that Cyril Ramaphosa and Matthews Phosa are developing a naval capability on trout farms in Mpumalanga.
We must not be caught off guard. The time has come to form a War Cabinet and for military ranks to be assigned to those loyal to our leader. You must serve as a general (again without any particular portfolio) and wear military dress (sunglasses optional) at all times. We should, for a bottle of Vodka, be able to pick up a marshal’s uniform with full decorations on the streets of Volgograd (pity about the name change). If anyone questions your military credentials, we can refer them to your rsum on the Internet in which it is recorded that you “completed a short military course in Angola”. Maybe we should expand your rsum to include accounts of valour on your part.
In my last letter to you, I made the stupid suggestion that we do away with Parliament and consolidate the entire process in the Office of the President. It has been pointed out to me that I have simply failed to understand the ideological value which Parliament plays in diverting attention from the real political divide in South Africa. I have learned that the parliamentary system allows our leader’s economic policies to be passed off as progressive because there are relics of the old order functioning as a parliamentary opposition to his right.
If one thinks about it, our leader actually has more in common with Tony Leon than with the majority of the office-bearers in the national executive committee of the African National Congress or the central committees of the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party. Now it all makes sense. Why dismantle the very institution which sustains the charade of a threat supposedly from the right, when the real threat to our leader lies within the alliance and is posed by those on the receiving end of his policies? What an ingenious paradox a political arrangement in which the beneficiaries of our leader’s rule are portrayed as “the opposition” while the victims are presented as his own constituency.
Another gaffe in my last letter was my suggestion that you might want to keep your options open by assisting those plotting against our leader. Of course this overlooks the fundamental point that, without any credentials as Best Man to any of the plotters, your prospects appear to be on the bleak side. What will become of you without our leader’s patronage? You cannot refer to any track record as a minister heading up a government department, and what can you rely on insofar as anything you have ever
written, said, or thought is concerned?
The way forward is clear. We need to amend the Constitution to give endurance to your status as a Cabinet minister beyond the reign of our leader. I think supplementing Section 91 with a provision which reads as follows will do the trick: “(6) Any person who has served as the Best Man of a groom who secures office as the President of the Republic of South Africa, shall, for his lifetime, and regardless of the political fortunes of the groom, enjoy all rights, privileges and benefits as a Cabinet Minister without responsibility for any Government Department.”
You might feel that in the interests of absolute certainty, the clause should contain the names of both you and our leader, but I feel that subtlety is called for amid all the allegations of paranoia and self-interest. I am confident that if my wording is adopted, it will be simple enough for you to enforce your rights by tendering, as evidence, our leader’s wedding photo-graphs and a copy of your speech. Your version can also be corroborated by your brother, at least insofar as the earlier part of the reception is concerned.
With our leader’s credibility at an all-time low, I have some suggestions as to how we mightelevate his profile in the popular imagination. A new genre of “reality entertainment” is being described as “compulsive viewing”. The programme Survivor involves an ordeal in which 16 individuals are left stranded in the middle of nowhere. One by one the participants are eliminated by the others, until only one remains to claim the prize of $1-million.
I suggest that our leader lays down the gauntlet by challenging the plotters, assorted racists and counter-revolutionaries to join him in a rain forest in Rwanda. According to the promotional material, “cunning, guile and charm play a more important role than the ability to catch fish … ” This should off-set Ramaphosa’s strengths as a contestant, allowing our leader’s attributes to prevail. Let’s make the prize a right to three presidential terms.
Another option you might want to consider is one which would, once and for all, put paid to the scurrilous utterances about our leader’s private life by white trash like Max du Preez, and fifth columnists like Winnie Madikizela-Mandela who raised the question in a letter. What better place to settle the issue than on prime-time television. As our leader might know from his hours on the Internet, one can make application online to be considered as a participant in Temptation Island Two. Picture this, our leader proving his restraint over two weeks on a remote island in the company of every woman who has ever been mentioned in the whispering campaign.
These are simply two ideas. As in politics, one doesn’t participate in a process in which one is not confident of winning. Discuss it with our leader and let me know what you think. We can always speak to the organisers about changes to the rules.
Yours for prime-time popularity,
Craig Tanner