Loose cannon Robert Kirby I have heard that during his heyday PW Botha was something of an enema freak. Before stressful occasions like making important speeches, blustering his way through Broederbond meetings, helicopter big-game shooting expeditions and so on, the Great Crocodile used to enjoy having a bucket of warm soapy water pumped up his cloaca. Apparently this put him in a relaxed and, especially at caucus meetings, reliably stupid mood.
I was told about this fetching practice by a more than usually reliable source, the late Mr John Wiley – once a pet Englishman at the PW kennels. In case you don’t remember, Minister John Wiley was later to commit instant suicide when one Sunday morning the vice-squad arrived at his home carrying shock batons, funny pyjamas and a cage. John was off to face charges of the hideous sexual abuse of some male children. I met Wiley some time before this happened. It was in the Jan Smuts Airport first-class lounge where he was about to jet off to attend PW’s famous “Rubicon” speech in Durban.
As we sat there rocked by the thunder of departing airliners, I happened to ask John Wiley what he expected PW Botha would be saying that evening. More than a little in his cups, Wiley replied something along the lines of, “It will depend entirely on how well his seven o’clock enema went.” Another beer and he yielded the few further cryptic details recorded above. I would that I had found out more, but John Wiley knew he’d already said enough. I wasn’t prepared to squeeze him.
Why am I going on about political enemas? It is because political enemas were the first thing that sprang to mind when I read Mr Joel Netshitenzhe’s plangent justifications for the ANC’s recent boisterous looting of public funds in order to promote themselves. Along with much other National Party anal wizardry they now so devoutly imitate, the ANC has taken to enema-speak. The organ they use is called the Government Communication and Information System of which Mr Joel Netshitenzhe is the Chief Secretary or something.
This is not only my opinion. A great big gloat of political parties agree with me. The DP and the NNP and the ACDP and the FF and the PAC, to name but a few. They also say that the ANC’s misappropriation of trainloads of public money in order to fund the ANC’s political boasting is simply not on.
Well into the cranial phase of his irrigation, Mr Joel Netshitenzhe responded to all this enraged complaint with a splendid mound of steamers. He argued that the ANC is more than justified in spending embezzled money on telling everyone how wonderful the ANC is.
“The Constitution obliges the government to inform the public about its activities and the Government Communication and Information System is the structure tasked with doing so.”
What a wonderful Kremlin ring that has. “Tell me, Comrade Polyp, who is in total charge of the Government Communication and Information System this week? Really? Assistant-Under- Secretary-Apprentice-Commissar (Second Class) Comrade Netshitenzhe? Good. With even more democracy looming, the party needs all the half truths, evasions and straight-up-and- down deception as it can get.”
Let’s take a quick look at an example of what Mr Netshitenzhe’s constitutional prerogative enforces him to reveal – in the public’s interest of course. Unexpurgated, uncensored, here is a sample of what the GCIS specifies as information vital to the nation. The following document is in the possession of the Mail & Guardian – and about 10-million other bewildered suckers.
This gem is from the Safety and Security segment in a recent lavishly expensive GCIS mega-pamphlet. Under an optimistic headline, “The Battle Against Crime Has Begun”, Mr Sydney Mufamadi sounds a syllogistically bipolar note.
“Suggestions by `experts’ that crime is remote from the heart of the government’s concern has no basis in fact.” Reflecting on the Richmond massacres, Syd goes on to offer: ” … the town is the lonely exception in an otherwise peaceful and stable province.”
Syd winds up in extra-large type: “Yet there are those who continue to peddle the idea that government has failed to solve the problem in KZN.”
And here we smug colonialists sit, sipping our gins, naively soaking up all this media- inspired nonsense about our dear old Natal. All the dangerous talk of Galloping Aids and Fun-Run Massacres, the Bus-Demolition Derbys and Fuck-a-Granny marches to the Sunset Frail-Care Centre. A load of preposterous lies, the lot of it.
Please tell us it is, Joel.