Public utterances are controlled to prevent contradiction. So I communicate here in my personal capacity as a gogo
I BRING YOU some good news: Eskom is still here. And some bad news: Eskom is still here! Before I unpack/tick the boxes of my 2020 Luthuli Housekeeping Report, let me first check if the grass is greener elsewhere. Or is that news fake?
2019 was a year of trashcans and turmoil with party unity making place for more factions than the old Nationalists used to hide under the excuse of state security. Of course as an ANC member the boxes I wish to tick are embargoed by rules and regulations in 10 official languages (Afrikaans is available on request), which do not allow comrades and cadres to exercise freedoms of speech, expression or opinion.
Public utterances are controlled to prevent contradiction. So I communicate here in my personal capacity as a gogo.
The austerity highlight of this new year so far has been the celebration of the ANC’s 108th birthday.
At 108, you are blind, deaf, incontinent and on a drip. Respect for the aged therefore now includes kindness towards the very old party.
White monopoly Botox has done its job on the surface, but deep down we still have to probe every cul-de-sac before the party finds the freeway.
Then comes Davos – three days of stand-up theatre, topped by the orange man from a white house and also an SA Team huffing and puffing somewhere among the smaller echelon.
Our Finance Minister tweeted: “If South Africans don’t pull up their socks, they will lose their legs!” CNN wanted to interview me, but I was busy trying to unravel Greta Thunburg’s plait. What a relief. How would I have answered his quote from Public Enterprises Minister Gordhan: “You think it was bad; I’m telling you it was worse.”
But every time I get back to South Africa after reading overseas that the writing is on the wall for us, I am so relieved. There’s no place like home.
Yes, we are in deep trouble. We know who is capturing the state; who the crooks are.
Let us find good politicians in every party and encourage them to be better and together we can make South Africa great again!
Yes, for some of us the glass is still half-full, but too many of us the glass is half-empty, if not already captured.
The world out there is moving “bigly” to the right, embracing what we left behind in 1994. Looking at the Potus-Kushner-Netanyahu coup with its nine pieces dotted all over the map, I see outlines of a Bantustan! Or is it now a Bibistan? I again wish for a De Klerk in Israel and a Mandela in Gaza.
So let us celebrate every small success. Will we keep on allowing third-rate politicians to frighten us into silence with their fourth-rate ideas? Or will we rediscover the legacies of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu?
The ANC cadre, with due respect to them all, is both comrade and curse. The day the ANC cadre is liberated from the chains of greed, that is the day that the ANC will begin to move in the right direction.
Public office is a privilege, not one for the privatisation of public wealth. A corrupt cadre who has been elected will just remain an elected corrupt cadre and will contribute to the ultimate implosion and downfall of our beloved party celebrating its 109th birthday on a saline drip in 2021.
So viva our democracy! Viva! t’s and c’s apply.
Bezuidenhout, aka Pieter-Dirk Uys, is a South African performer, author, satirist, and social activist
