Robert Kirby: Loose Cannon In Wachthuis mugs did Meyer Kahn
A stately drivel-dome decree;
Where George, the sacred fuzzman, ran
By canons measureless to man
Down to a Muf’madi.
I think we’ve got ourselves a real treasure in Meyer Kahn, CEO of the South African Roundheads: Atmosphere for Crime Control Division. Not only is our Meyer a fine, upstanding example of just how far a South African beer salesman can drag himself up moral high ground without any apparent assistance other than the sheer lifting force of his own ambitions.
Not a Sherpa in sight, not even an Ian Woodall to lend him succour or a sturdy pull on his rope, there’s old Meyer, hoisted to the pantheon.
And, true to those who share his high altitude-citizenry, Meyer has now started spouting like a chimera.
No one has the faintest idea of what most of these fireballs means and most people don’t have the time to find out. I’ll have a go for you.
Like any House of Mandela-approved soothsayer, Meyer likes to call the media acolytes to heel now and then in order to bring them up to date on his latest musings.
Last week, as eager reporters gathered at his feet, Meyer belched, solemnly discharged a cloud of violet gendarme-like goodwill, and announced that he’d prepared what the journalists could only later describe wittily as “Kahn’s new brew”.
Here’s a taste, as Meyer Kahn tosses back a slug of the well-brewed coffee “he’s so famous for” and announces: “But what we need to do is energetically address the structural problems because by doing so we will be creating a foundation for effective law-enforcement in the future”. (Bless old Meyer. Always thinking of how to make the future safe in the event our children remain not only alive but unraped as well.)
What Meyer really means with the above is that he and the bunch of underpaid, corrupt, racist, cowardly, overstretched, demotivated, psychologically brutalised, brave, vilified, depraved policemen he has inherited from the monstrous apartheid legacy, haven’t the faintest collective idea of where to go next.
Clearly Meyer, Syd, George and the lads have decided that since presently occurring crime is running rampantly out of their control, they may as well concentrate on what to do about crime which will be running rampantly out of their control sometime in the future.
Quite sensibly, Meyer has decided to concentrate on fighting crime that hasn’t yet been committed.
A bit of a bleed-now-win-later approach, but full of possibilities.
Another pearl: “And in all honesty one has to argue that despite the problems we are having in our macro-economic policy, as such, sooner or later growth is going to return to South Africa on a sustainable basis. All those factors are going to alleviate the situation.”
A defectively plaintive tone hides exactly the same message as the first example.
Here Meyer’s sub-text is comforting: “The present runaway savage crime wave will burn itself out without any further assistance from the police. What we really need to do now is concentrate our efforts towards a crime-free future society where, notwithstanding the right-to-life of pedestrians, even jaywalkers will be pursued and destroyed.”
The interpretation of Kahn-speak – and that of many others like him – is rather like those sub-titles on foreign movies where the heard dialogue is often about 20 times as long as the sub-title. A French farmer yells passionately at his wife for a full minute and the sub-title translates: “My dear, you are mistaken.”
So with eduction of the above and other utterances from the Kahn Crime Prevention Seance Chambers. It’s easy to interpret Meyer Kahn when he’s talking to the press with his safe-emission setting selected.
This is because everything he says has the same basic meaning. Real boil-down stuff.
I do not pity Mr Kahn. He’s getting paid an arm and a leg to make us feel all safe and cosy now that democracy’s nudged us into putting up a 20 000 volt electric fence.
Anyway, the growing demand for electric fences is creating lots of jobs which help the macro-economic policy … as such.
My dear old friend and ex-brother-in-law, Jimmy Ritchie, is a master magician. His truism, on the importance to any magician of the art of misdirection is memorable. “If you misdirect properly, you can stuff an elephant into a bus six inches away from where you’ve made them all look. And they won’t see a thing.”