Robert Kirby
LOOSE CANNON
Last week yielded another of his feared public tantrums from Mr Mbeki’s chief soothsayer, Mr Mankahlana – or as he’s affectionately known these days, “South Parks”. In his newest ragings Mr Mankahlana described those who disagree with the president on the HIV/Aids issue as his “assailants”.
I have to agree. With keen dismay I have watched the brickbats hurtle towards our beloved state president and his medical fundis.
At last my deep patriotism has overtaken me. The time has come to contribute, not sit on the sidelines emitting subtle Eurocentric guidance. Practical help is urgently necessary. What with all the state banquets and overseas travel poor Mr Mbeki has to undertake, he must have precious little time to sit up all night scraping away at the Internet in search of better ways to deal with our national catastrophe. A case of all hands to the mouse.
For the first few hours of dedicated surfing all I could find was a selection of medical websites all displaying the same rank arrogance about HIV/Aids: the whoopee- cushion scientific “truth” which has been adopted by minor players in this awful international crisis. Dubious lash-ups like the United Nations Health Organisation and that pack of pseudo-specialists at the International Institute of Virology.
Eventually I hit on to a rewarding website on the Russian “Internyet”. Maintained by a group of disaffected Ukrainian medical experts, the site offers substitute diagnoses and treatment regimens to anything from tundral brainrot to ebola haemorrhoids. (www.krazydox.krem). There’s a whole page on research which has found that the HIV is distantly related to the virus responsible for a variety of communism-induced sociopathologies, in particular, the act of micturation in public places. The krazydox experts say it is quite impossible to transmit the HIV in sexual encounters unless these are conducted within urine-shot of a licenced heterosexual HIV sufferer. More urinals near the bars and shebeens could be the answer.
Next site to yield valuable and money- saving HIV/Aids advice was called Dildo- Sentraal (www.femstem. franschhoek.com). This is a largely Afrikaans counselling centre but it hosts a cyberprogramme dedicated to sexually transmitted paranoia. Dildo-Sentraal reveals undeniable evidence that the HIV is nothing but a slightly mutated viral throwback from a highly infectious nasal complaint of the Great Trek – so-called soetsnotsiekte . All the authorities need to do is forbid the loud use of Afrikaans in high-risk zones like airports and government buildings.
Last one for now, Mr President. A site I found later was that of a congregation of Arizona faith healers called Trustingod – you might well have visited this one yourself. If you have you’ll recall that Trustingod medico-theologists hold that the HIV is transmitted only by the medium of prayer. Better still, the Bible reveals that the HIV may easily be repudiated by use of the same methodology: as often as you can collapse to your knees and cry woefully out to God to remove this plague from your midst. All you have to do then is relax back on to your arse for the following few years wondering why He’s taking so long to get started.
There you are Thabs, old lad. Forget about AZT, those avaricious drug companies, all the tiresome rest of it. Quickly change your mind again and at your next speech announce that you and Manto have found out that all that’s needed to defeat Aids is a selection of the above treatments and precautions. The white-owned media will do the rest.