Fred Esbend
A new form of public protest has hit the streets in Port Elizabeth minibus taxi drivers are using their vehicles to broadcast their unhappiness with the government.
“Corruption … Life’s a bitch! Enjoy the ride”, is emblazoned on the back of a taxi travelling through the city.
Another taxi has a huge sticker that reads: “Ain’t no gravy train … We do the talk we do the walk.”
A quick tour of the taxi ranks reveals more. On the back seat of a taxi the following is scribbled: “The Americans have Bill Clinton, Bob Hope, Johnny Cash and Stevie Wonder. We have Nelson Mandela, no hope, no cash, no wonder!”
Another taxi highlights government’s failure to curb the crime rate: “Nationalise crime and make sure it doesn’t pay”. Another reads: “Crime doesn’t pay but the hours are good.”
According to former African National Congress war veteran, Sipho Dlula, the use of satire on taxis is an ideal way of getting a message across to people and to remind them of “the ANC’s failed election promises of a better life for all”.
Dlula is a taxi driver and hopes to own a taxi one day. He is disillusioned with the slow pace of economic transformation in South Africa, especially government’s failure to create jobs and its “inability to combat corruption within its own ranks”.
Following convicted fraudster Allan Boesak’s early release from prison, taxi driver Amos Kleinbooi pasted inside of his taxi a poem titled: “A Prophet for Profit” that was written by an anonymous person under the pseudonym “Straight Talk”.
It reads: “There can be little doubt in anyone’s mind/Now Boesak’s left his cell behind/He’ll take his title as Prophet-elect/For profit which only he can collect/With the ANC he’ll walk the aisle/To riches, luxury and style/If it’s prophecy you want, then this is mine/The truth of which will come with time.”