Oom Krisjan, having formed close relationships with many a scribe because of their shared appreciation of the fruits of the vine, is also a strong supporter of media freedom.
So, following World Press Freedom Day last Saturday, the Oom would like to salute Arthur Konigkramer, MD of the isiZulu newspaper Ilanga, for his principled stand in this regard.
Konigkramer recently told a Business Day columnist that it was a ”smear” to call Ilanga an Inkatha Freedom Party publication. The newspaper, he said, was independently run even though it was owned by the party. He might have reminded the columnist that he, the man who runs this independent publication, is also stalwart and former treasurer general of the IFP, and organiser of its last two election campaigns.
The man gives new meaning to the words ”campaigning journalism”.
Turning Thabo
The people of the Visdorpie have always had a way with words. They’re masters of the quick repartee, hence witty responses such as in the following exchange:
”Excuse me sir, but this snoek you sold me smells foul and must be at least 12 days old.”
”Jou ma se p …”
Oom Krisjan is happy to hear from one of his correspondents on the Cape Flats, however, that political wit has not sunk to the same level.
When the president opened Parliament in February, it was under the theme ”The Tide has Turned”. The African Christian Democratic Party’s by-election posters in Grassy Park this week: ”Turn the Tide”.
Bum rap 1
Oom Krisjan finds some recent comments by Prince Gideon Zulu, the KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Social Welfare and Development, disturbing.
Zulu, commenting on the floor-crossing that almost cost his Inkatha Freedom Party the provincial premiership, said floor-crossers were fond of positions that were ”bigger than their mothers’ bums”.
When women politicians demanded he apologise for his ”sexist” remark, he replied that female buttocks were ”all [part of] Zulu culture. A young maiden, who has to prove her virginity, shows her bum to be passed.”
The women politicians were not at all satisfied and staged a protest at his ”abusive” language. While Oom Krisjan shares some of the women’s concerns, he is more disturbed at the implication of Zulu’s defence: considering that the backside is, in the honourable MEC’s mind, the locality where sexual virtue is seated, is there not a danger of an increased incidence of social ills (unwanted pregnancies to name but one) when the front-end is left unguarded?
Bum rap 2
Those naughty Nigerian 419 scams are becoming more sophisticated. Even out here in the Marico we have succumbed to the ubiquitous e-mails. This week Lemmer was shocked to receive a communication purporting to come from our esteemed Deputy Minister of Minerals and Energy, Susan ”Flash” Shabangu.
The scam is the familiar one where the writer claims to be a high official in a corrupt African country who has stashed millions of dollars in illegal income and now needs to launder the cash. On offer to the gullible is a hefty percentage should he/she just provide the appropriate identification and banking details. The result, should you be foolish enough to supply aforesaid, is that your own account gets cleaned out.
This particular version is highly sophisticated, with an Internet link to the deputy minister’s official CV and a story line about her late husband having made millions out of diamond deals she pushed his way. Oom Krisjan wonders whether it is a measure of our nation’s declining reputation for probity that our own Cabinet members are now used by criminals as bait to hook the greedy.
On the other hand, the Oom supposes, the sneaky writer may just have thought that those who believe the honourable deputy minister is capable of exposing herself to airport officials will believe her capable of anything.
Banana bonanza
Speaking of matters of probity, Lemmer is happy to report that our country and our continent has not sunk nearly as low in the banana republic stakes as some leading Western countries.
Take, for example, the Italian billionaire businessman-prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who this week testified at his own trial to answer charges he had bribed a judge to the tune of R1-million. The payment, allegedly, was to ensure a state food enterprise was not privatised to a business competitor.
The prime minister said from the dock that ”I am proud, I repeat, I am proud of my conduct,” and then proceeded to implicate others, including his countryman Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission, in aspects of the saga.
If Berlusconi survives the court ordeal, he still needs to satisfy world opinion on conflict-of-interest questions such as why his government has been running Italy’s state broadcaster, RAI, into the ground — to the benefit of Mediaset, his own private media company.
Berlusconi’s shameless conduct, of course, does not come close to that of Dick Cheney, the vice (and de facto) president of the United States. Cheney & Co have conquered a country they accused of having its finger on the trigger of mass destruction. Weeks later, the conquerors have failed to find a shred of evidence to back its casus belli.
More evidence has emerged, however, of a contract that the US military gave to a company called Kellogg Brown & Root. Potentially worth billions and tender free, the contract was to fight oil-well fires — and secretly to start pumping Iraqi oil.
Kellogg Brown & Root is a subsidiary of Halliburton, the oil services company formerly run by Cheney. Earlier this year The Guardian reported that Halliburton was still paying Cheney up to a million dollars a year as ”deferred compensation” from the golden handshake it paid him when he sacrificed all to return to public service.
Readers wishing to alert Oom Krisjan to matters of national or lesser importance can do so at [email protected]