Wannabe hero: Carl Niehaus’s New Year’s resolution is to ride triumphant through KwaZulu-Natal, the home of the RET faction, after having vanquished the ANC. Photo: Deaan Vivier/Beeld/Gallo Images
As she cradled her nephew after he was kicked out of the ANC like a spoiled Christmas lunch, Tannie Evita Bezuidenhout sang a time-honoured Afrikaans lullaby to comfort the crestfallen Carl Niehaus.
“Siembamba, mamma se kindjie … draai sy nek om, gooi hom in die sloot/ Trap op sy kop, dan is hy dood.”
That is: “Siembamba, mother’s little baby … wring his neck, throw him in the ditch/ Step on his head, and now he is dead.”
This was the image I envisioned on 31 December when Niehaus — who was expelled from the ANC “after 43 years of service” about two weeks prior — posted on Twitter an email he received from Bezuidenhout, the alter ego of the acclaimed entertainer, Pieter-Dirk Uys.
In the email, written in Afrikaans, Bezuidenhout —who referred to Niehaus as “Karel”, the Afrikaans version of his first name — said she was thinking of Niehaus on New Year’s Eve, wishing him the best for 2023.
“Remember, a Boer makes a plan,” Bezuidenhout wrote, signing the email as Tannie Evita.
Tapping into his heritage and channelling his inner Boer general, Niehaus, responding in Afrikaans, told Tannie Evita not to worry, declaring that, in 2023, he had his sights set on wringing the neck — including the attendant stomp on the head until he was dead — of the cupcake-in-chief, Cyril Ramaphosa.
“I have many surprises and plans for the new year. The biggest of which was to give Cyril a run for his money,” the brave Niehaus wrote.
He was alluding to the new stokvel — under the guise of a “civil society political movement” — he said he would launch this year “to promote the radical economic transformation values that the fake ANC thing betrayed”.
Niehaus was quick to mention that he was not starting another political party to rival the ANC .
“You know what happens with overexcited [and] premature orgasms; they result in big pap disappointments,” Niehaus contended.
You see, like a reincarnated Eugene Terre’Blanche, Niehaus has been riding on his high horse since being ejected from the ANC. But, unlike Terre’Blanche, Niehaus was telling all and sundry that he was going to rescue black Africans from the cruel clutches of white monopoly capital.
Without seeing the irony of styling himself as a “white saviour” Hollywood character — the cinematic portrayal of white people being heroes in saving black people — Niehaus said his new movement would “truly represent the full liberation ideals” that would save the country’s black African majority”.
He continued: “Those radical economic transformation ideals, which at the centre has the return of the land to the people: expropriation of land without compensation, the nationalisation of the South African Reserve Bank, the creation of a state bank that will truly serve our people and make capital available to young black — and especially African — entrepreneurs,” Niehaus said in a recorded video on Monday.
“In general, for radical economic transformation that will reflect the true ideals of the African Charter of 1948, and subsequently the Freedom Charter [of June 1955].”
Essentially, the Freedom Charter spoke about a concept known as the national democratic revolution, which is the ANC’s version of a socialist nirvana.
Heck, Niehaus has gone the Full Monty on what the nouveau woke often refer to as “cultural appropriation”, adopting the moniker “Mpangazitha” in reference to himself. The name, loosely translated from isiZulu, means “the one who devours his enemies”.
Goodness knows, Ramaphosa, who was re-elected ANC president last month days after Niehaus’s removal from the party, is his sworn enemy and has publicly stated that he will show Ramaphosa “flames”.
“And we give notice to Cyril Ramaphosa and to the sell-outs in the dead ANC; that the ANC of which they have hollowed out the cause [of] and created something we no longer recognise,” rambled Niehaus.
But maybe Ramaphosa — who is fond of heavily-built and horned oxen — will unleash his embedded Buffalo Bill to fight Niehaus and the flames he is expected to bring.
Who’ll win? I have no idea.
But someone will have their neck wrung and head stomped on in a bitter fight to the finish.