It’s freezing in room S35 in the National Council of Provinces. The air conditioning in the room, which is shrouded in heavy, red suede curtaining, is dialled down to frigid.
And the array of politicians facing off over the Protection of Information Bill doesn’t help matters.
It’s Friday and the second round of submissions from political parties on their proposed changes to the Bill is being heard by Parliament’s ad hoc committee.
In a row to the left are the Democratic Alliance’s Dene Smuts and David Maynier. Next to them sits the African Christian Democratic Party’s Steve Swarts and the Inkatha Freedom Party’s Mario Oriani-Ambrosini. Luwellyn Landers, point man for the ANC’s submissions on the Bill, sits opposite them.
I’ve a mind to stand up and yell: “In the left corner we have the DA, the IFP and just about everybody else and in the right corner we have the ANC and the might of the security administration. Let’s get ready to rumble!”
A common refrain from committee chairperson Cecil Burgess is: “Honourable members, please can we reduce the temperatures to acceptable levels”, as the clause-by-clause battle of the Bill progresses. Though, to my mind, the temperature is low enough. In fact, it is positively chilling.
Too far removed
It drops a few more degrees when Landers accuses the DA of refusing to concede that the ANC’s submission does not seek to extend the power to classify information to just anybody — and certainly not to individuals far removed from national security issues, such as a functionary in an entity like the Algoa bus company.
Smuts sticks to her guns, arguing that intelligence services cannot concern themselves with governing all “life on Earth”.
It is from this setting that I stumble into a gloriously sunny day and smack-bang into a picket line led by two suspender-decked comedic dissidents, Corné (Louw Venter) and Twakkie (Rob van Vuuren).
The odd couple, who achieved a cult following through their The Most Amazing Show on SABC2, have pitched themselves headlong into the country’s debate on media freedom.
Corné, the tall one, and Twakkie, the short one, led a small yet spirited group of City Varsity students under the slogan “Ignorance is Bliss”.
“The media is kak, the media is a cockroach!” storms Corné over his loudhailer. He is gamely echoed by the crowd. “Do we want the truth?” asks Twakkie. “Not a fuck,” yells Corné.
Evil newspapers
A big red bus, filled with sight-seeing tourists drives by. The crowd roars a welcome to them and they are then treated to a few more choice expletives from Corné on freedom of speech. The tourists appear bemused.
“The Mail & Guardian is probably the most evil, evil shit-hole of a newspaper,” Twakkie says, after I tell him who I work for. He is clad in tiny, synthetic jogging shorts circa 1976; his yellow, shag moustache wriggles around his face as he talks.
“They just, without thought or consequences to normal citizens, start spreading information and truth like it’s candy. The M&G keeps promoting strange and disruptive bloody agent tendencies of trying to promote free speech and thinking for yourselves. Bullshit! It’s bullshit!”
He explains how ANC Youth League president Julius Malema could not join their march. “He’s very busy shutting down Twitter today, he couldn’t make it, he’s doing it one twotter at a time,” Twakkie declares. “His thumbs are going to be very sore.”
I ask him for his thoughts on the Protection of Information Bill and the mooted media appeals tribunal.
“It’s about time! We really want the government to tell us how to think, preferably to tell us who to vote for and when to do it as well. We want to sleep at night and if government could just take care of all these nasty truthful things behind closed doors. We trust them. We trust them to spend the money wisely — they have so far done so well with the money. Ja, and let the clever guys in Parliament deal with nasty issues like the truth.”
He invites me to volunteer for their upcoming show at the Baxter theatre. During the show there is a plan to lock up a “media representative” in a cage on stage.
Each time that media representative tells the truth during the show “we will burn them with a cigarette and we will give audience members flaming apples to throw at that media representative”.
He offers me the opening night bill. I tell him to sign me up and leave, wishing I could throw Corné and Twakkie into the parliamentary fight ring. Now there would be some flaming apples.