Undead: Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen. Photo: Waldo Swiegers/Getty Images
Thursday.
For an alleged target of the white genocide that John Steenhuisen, Elon Musk and other prophets of doom of the slap chips variety have been bleating about since the weekend, I’m feeling rather chipper.
The impending return of professional league football — Arsenal against Man City in the Charity Shield is so close I can almost taste it — will do that .
So will the promise of the first salary increase since Jacob Zuma was president — and a week away from slaving to hang out with my offspring, Small James, whom I haven’t seen in a year.
Perhaps it’s none of the above, and it’s simply the fact that I live in Umbilo, and not in a bubble.
Perhaps it’s because I broke every apartheid law that I could, back in the day, rather than playing ball with the Nazis, and don’t have any sense of fear of payback for my own actions lurking in wait for me.
Whatever it is, I’m just not getting that sense that I’m about to be slaughtered on the basis of my skin colour in the white genocide that the Brothers Grim have been rabbiting on about since Sunday.
John and Elon’s claim that “they” are going to genocide me — I’m assuming they’re talking about black South Africans here — because Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) president Julius Malema sung Dubul’ ibhunu at the party’s 10th anniversary celebration at the FNB Stadium.
According to John and Elon, my days are numbered and I am cowering away from South Africans with more melanin than myself — scared for my life — because Malema sang a song.
If the Doomsday Duo are to be believed — or taken seriously — President Cyril Ramaphosa is fuelling the flames of slaughter by not locking Malema up for singing a struggle song — like De La Rey, but sung by the winning side and in isiZulu — and the (white) bodies are piling up.
I’m many things, but cowering isn’t one of them.
I’m not dead either.
Or stupid.
I’m also, like the majority of South Africans, totally unterrified and unoffended — and of course, decidedly ungenocided — by Malema’s rendition of a song about ending apartheid that he borrowed from the ANC.
The courts have spoken.
The judges have accepted, like the rest of us, that people — Malema included — have a right to sing symbolic songs, songs that were sung mainly by unarmed people going up against those with the rifles and machine guns — and which don’t actually call for the wiping out of white people.
Genocide.
Come to think of it, I also haven’t heard much about Malema — or any other black person — going to the United Nations to stop John and Elon from out die blou van onse hemeling at the rugby; or going to court to take away their Steve Hofmeyr albums.
Perhaps I missed it.
To be quite honest, I’ve sung Dubul’ ibhunu once or twice myself, back in my lawbreaker days, badly and with an East Belfast accent, but with enthusiasm — and certainly with no sense that the black people around me would kill me — or that I should kill myself — as a result.
Perhaps there’s still time.
John certainly didn’t lose any time on trying to capitalise on Malema’s vocalising.
FNB had hardly stopped echoing when the first SMS arrived from the Democratic Alliance, asking me to donate so that John can go to the United Nations and ask them to tell Malema to stop singing.
According to John, Malema is trying to start a civil war by singing.
Granted, Juju is no Barry White, but I don’t see his voice forcing anybody to kill me.
No time lost.
John’s fundraiser reminds me of former Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) boss Eugene Terre’blanche, who asked his supporters to cough up while vibing swart gevaar.
Eurgene popped up in Vryheid after he fell on hard times, selling the threat of white genocide and a SMS security plan to nervous farmers and scared retirees.
Euge was offering the punters armed boere at the push of a button in response to any threat to their lives from people of a darker skin hue.
I got distracted when the boere kicked out Piet Dlamini, the AWB’s only black member — make that would-be black member — from the farmers’ hall where Eugene was making his pitch, so I’m not sure how many signed on — or how much boer the subscribers got for their buck.
That said, I may give John a rand or two.
Granted, this isn’t the kind of endeavour I would usually spend my money on, but it might be worth it, just to see the look on his face when the UN throws his case out and tells him to go home and grow up.