Robert Kirby Channel Vision
His teeth are naturally immune to stain, so that when he releases a full blown smile, the naturally white teeth discharge a rediation (sic) pregnant with sweet joy and real happiness for those lucky ones who are fortune (sic) to be around him.
No, the above is not part of a recent Cape Times editorial on the subject of Thabo Mbeki. And it is definitely not a phrase from Jay Naidoo’s forthcoming autobiography, The Postman Who Only Knocked Once.
In fact it is the opening paragraph of an unusually subdued panegyric published in a Tripoli newspaper on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the 1969 revolution which brought to power one Colonel Moammar Gadaffi; he of the plasticine features, the medal-festooned comic opera military uniforms and those extraordinary military caps with scrambled egg dripping off them.
It was clearly in search of contradictory impressions of the Libyan messiah that Adri Kotz, one of the intrepid reporters that make up the SABC’s Special Assignment team, went off to Tripoli. Her brief was to conduct a marketing exercise, to try to hoist the granular colonel from his long- cherished pariah status into the pantheon of vulturine fin de sicle liberators.
He wants for a perch alongside Milosovic, Mugabe, Suharto, Kabila, et al. Not that Mr Gadaffi needs much more PR. From the look of it, Tripoli is an enormous art gallery exhibiting variations on only one theme: the many faces of Moammar and his incredible luminous teeth. In various heroic poses he was everywhere the camera looked. Vast renditions of him covered the sides of buildings, massive posters, framed photographs.
Ms Kotz’s script was more or less along the same lines, one spectacular smarm after another. She was most effective in manipulating the sub-plot of this in-depth- fearless-probing Special Assignment feature: the SABC news department’s latest modification to the Lockerbie scandal.
Perceptive viewers that you are, you will have noticed that ever since Gadaffi grudgingly handed over the two Lockerbie suspects for trial, the SABC’s apportioning of kudos for persuading Gadaffi to do so has steadily been evolving.
At first only Mr Mandela was credited with no more than having put the final touches to the 10-year international campaign aimed at forcing Gadaffi to his knees – his senses crumble of their own accord.
A week later Mr Mandela’s advisers had horned in on the act. Aziz Pahad was first one on the blower to Snuki Zikalala (PhD). “I also took part,” he said tartly. “And I think Jakes Gerwel was also burrowing around somewhere.”
The SABC complied and in that very night’s eight-o’clock bulletin Pahad and Gerwel were awarded silver and bronze in the relay struggle to rehabilitate Moammar. It got better and within a month the Mandela Tripoli-busters were credited by the SABC with having been prime movers in the Lockerbie campaign, from the very moment the fateful 747 rolled down the Heathrow runway.
Special Assignment chose Professor Jakes to be pregnant with sweet joy and happiness as once again he humbly claimed these laurels. It was a very touching moment and brought many small tears to my great dane’s soft yellow eyes.
Later in the week, the same SABC television news department were to reflect on the particularly vicious rape and assault of a young woman – she had her face and body burnt with a clothes iron. The SABC roped in expert opinion in the form of some pathetic RAU psychologist who said this sort of obscene violence is a product of “the emotional baggage” these unfortunate rapists have had to carry all their lives.
She went on to hint darkly that this harsh burden was something the rapists have carried over from their terrible past, thereby spiffily fingering apartheid for both rape and disfigurement. Her remedy was even more septic. All unfortunate would-be rapists toting such emotional baggage should go home and have a good think about themselves.
I think the only problem rapists really have is keeping still while someone of an improved moral order puts a bullet through their heads.