A Promising Start, Mr Lesufi

 Dear Mr Lesufi

Congratulations on ascending the steep staircase to the premiership of Gauteng.

A promising start, as you tossed out assorted promises involving pharmaceutical companies rising from the Highveld soil, and other stuff essential to life, liberty and the elusive pursuit of happiness.

A patriot made some promises on social media on behalf of your comrade, Dr Mkhize. They were:

Ending loadshedding 

Creating jobs 

Ending factions 

Violent crimes (We already have these, so I assume that he meant an end to them).

Violence against women and children (same assumption)

Drug abuse (ditto)

I mention these because of the happy thought that, between you and the good doctor, you will put an end to the many troubles that we face in Gauteng, KZN, South Africa  (Oh, joy!). May I ask that you both add these to your lists:

World peace,

An end to destructive climate change, 

A chicken in every pot,

Of course, a pot for said chicken in every kitchen where there is none.

That should round it off quite nicely.

If i read the reports correctly, you have gathered around you a sort of Manchester United of provincial government. Ms Mokonyane of grocery list fame and  others who have made their indelible mark on the playing fields of ethical, competent leadership. Also, apparently on the pages of various newspapers. With such a team, who could lose?

Then there's that calm, restrained demeanour that you brought to your education job. You hunted racism in schools as Saint George was said to have hunted the dragon. You made the ringing declaration that you will never apologize to racists, nor bow down to right wingers. Stirring stuff. 

You seem to have kicked off in like calm, restrained, dignified fashion.  This might have been my fevered imagination, following the euphoria that resulted from the news of your appointment. I thought that I read about an accusation from you that the media are out to destroy the ANC.  Where is your faith, sir? The ANC is perfectly capable of doing that itself. No media help required.

Yours in the struggle to make and keep memorable promises.

Richard 

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O Tichmann 

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Ethics and Math in South Africa

 It's been said that the typical math and ethics problems presented in classrooms are out of touch with reality.

"Train A leaves Johannesburg at 8am while Train B leaves Cape Town at 9am..."

Everyone knows that:

1. Trains are rarer than honest politicians 

2. Even if there were two such trains, they would never run on time

Some practical, relevant ethics and math problems:

1. You are being chased by a JMPD officer. 500 Metres away lies the safety of Hillbrow. 

Taking into account the average mass of a JMPD officer and your fastest adrenaline-fuelled times, calculate your chances of making a clean escape..

2. At Zoo Lake, Gwede Mantashe, Julius Malema, Dr Ace and Jacob Zuma simultaneously get into difficulty while swimming. You can save only one.

a. Who do you save?

b. How do you justify your actions to social media contacts and friends?

3. You are part of a fragile coalition governing an important metro. While you are fiercely loyal, you also have several pressing financial / life problems. Yoour wife and mistress need urgent surgery (tummy tuck and facelift, respectively), your BMW needs repairs... These problems  can be solved if you switch sides. 

The question is not whether you switch sides (given, if you're a good politician), but whether you tell the truth about your reasons. Keep in mind that honesty is your policy.

4. You have benefitted enormously from a tender to build a stadium. Newspapers countrywide have characterized the project as major fraud. You have bigger problems. Your mother-in-law, who hates you with intense hatred, and your brother, who has never worked a day in his life, both ask for a sizeable sum of money.

Do you help one, both or neither?

How do you deal with family fallout that may follow?

5. You have one KFC drumstick left over as you approach a traffic light. A hungry-looking man lifts a hand in appeal. 

Do you give him the chicken or save it for the traffic officer who has just signalled for you to pull over and may also be very hungry?

6. You want to start an ice cream business and employ five people. Calculate how long it would take to get your business off the ground on a R350 per month grant.

6. Your municipality has sewerage, water and pothole challenges. Given a budget of R500 million, calculate the number of functions, meetings and best-practice visits to foreign countries that you can fit in during the financial year before running out of budget.

7. Your friends are expressing their admiration for a politician whom you regard as slightly lower than the belly of a puff adder. You wish to keep the peace but also be true to yourself. 

Choose the most appropriate response;

1. Eish!

2 Ja well, no fine!

3. What do you think of Pirates?

4. Cough, cough, choke

5. The scuffle continues.

8. You are selling your latest best-seller from the boot of a Mercedes. Taking into account the space available, book dimensions and the insatiable demand for good literature in South Africa, calculate:

1. The time it will take to clear the boot.

2. The interval of time before you can fill the boot with your next best seller.

9. Your comrades are disrupting a city council meeting with tuneless singing and vigorous gyrations. You are horrified.

Do you show leadership and set the example by:

a. Stepping in and taking up the correct tune?

b. Showing off your own dance moves?

c. All of the above?

10. The Gautrain leaves Johannesburg for Pretoria at the same time as the Youth Minister's blue light convoy leaves for a critical, life-changing, nation-shaking luncheon. 

Calculate which course the minister and bodyguards will be tucking into by the time the Gautrain arrives.

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O Tichmann 

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Selling South Africans

 'Under the spreading chestnut tree,

I sold you and you sold me...'

George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four

Poor South Africa. No opposition knights in shining, or even unpolished, armour to come to your rescue. There is no passionate quest for the holy grail of service delivery, dignity, progress. In Johannesburg we saw, instead, a scramble to get grubby hands on the withered, shrunken udder of the cash cow. And citizens will not even get to suck the hind tit 

It has always been so. For a brief moment, the DA, PA, ActionSA and others almost had us believing otherwise. Then they fell at the first hurdle, stumbled at the bottom of the  stair.

Who sold who amidst the horse and ass trading? Does it even matter? The clear message is that ego, power, greed and narrow party interests trump the needs of every citizen of South Africa. It is the time of the dwarves in South African politics. 

As for the ANC, is this the same ANC that transformed Johannesburg into a world class African ghetto over several years? And we're to believe that a magician's spell has transformed them into Galahads of city government? 

The new mayor, reading from an ancient script, gleefully tossed around terms such as 'transparency', 'service delivery' and 'dignity'. ANC, when will you learn? Don't use big words that you don't understand. People will make fun of you. Ah, but then it doesn't matter, does it? There's a cliche, a slogan, an excuse, an insult for every charge. 

Johannesburg, you have our condolences. Close your eyes and think of....somewhere. 

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KZN Calling

 Dear Voters

I had an epiphany, an awakening, a life-changing experience, in the early hours of this very morning. 

A blinding flash of light (which turned out to be the Durban sunrise) burst upon my Netflix-quality dream of running battles with zama-zamas and sinister CIA agents. A voice, distinct and distinctive as that of Gwede Mantashe, intoned: 

"Arise and take your place in KZN politics".  I arose.

That's not really how it happened. But I'm as entitled to flights of imagination as are my hero-politicians. Writing is a wretched, thankless business and I have  decided to do something more lucrat..., I  mean, meaningful, with my life. I sense a calling. 

I notice that positions of influence and power in KZN and in The Party are 'ripe to harvest', so to speak.  Also that young, old (mainly old), adored, despised and hitherto unnoticed are all piling in.

I know that the bar is set very high in KZN. I have not been involved in interesting transactions involving millions and billions, yet. Nevertheless, I do meet and exceed the other criteria. I understand them to be, among others:

1. An extremely colourful track record. A dismally colourless one will also suffice.

 2. A genius for obscuring a zero (or minus) contribution to the well-being of one's constituents with many, many cliches, slogans and acronyms 

3. The mystical ability to state the obvious with the gravitas of an Old Testament prophet.

4. A gift for calling day night and night day with such evangelical fervour that the converts and acolytes are overtaken by transports of ecstasy. 

5. An absence of skaam cells so dire that it would kill a normal human being.

6. A sense of entitlement that would put medieval royalty to shame.

My time has come to cross the Rubicon and the Tugela. As is customary, I shall first seek wisdom from Mr Zuma. As is customary, I  shall then ignore it. 

In Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, O'Brien tells Winston that "We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness".  This may be my final 'Scuffle' article but I expect that we shall meet in the place where there is no light.

Yours in the struggle not to be poor (acknowledgement to the comrade who coined this inspirational slogan).

Richard 

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Dr Ace And The CIA

 Dear Dr Ace 

You revealed that the CIA is colluding with certain parties against you.  People made fun of you. 

I am not surprised (at the allegations and the mockery). I, too, was made fun of when I explained to teachers that the CIA had stolen my school report  (due that afternoon). There are no depths to which these people will not stoop. Did they not once contemplate a plan to make Castro's beard fall out?  You can google this, sir. That is why I support you in the face of ridicule, as unflinchingly as Commander Carl supports Mr Zuma.

'Why would the CIA be interested in Ace', 

'Delusional' were some of the comments from twitterati. How deceived, naive and ignorant our people are! Someone even suggested that the CIA has never heard of Dr Ace. Ha!

Let me tell you that there is intense, almost obsessive interest in and scrutiny of South Africa abroad. I am convinced that between salvoes, Russian and Ukranian troops hurriedly tune into 5FM and other radio stations. To get the latest on Zuma, Malema, Mr Fraser, you and Commander Carl.

This tweet from Kim Heller, (a seeker after truth), is most enlightening:

'Malema is seen as a leader of significance, if not a future President. “I love brother Julius Malema, he is a celebrated figure here in the States” says Uncle Phil, the host of African Diaspora News, a television news platform, in the US.'

There, huge interest in our little land and our big heroes!

Not content with taking the word of Kim's Uncle Phil, I called some friends in Texas.

"Oh, yeah, he's bigger than Big Tex at the state fair. After oil and cattle, he's the talk of the town right about now, ol Julio Maylema."

Now, if the CIC of some ragged ground forces attracts that much interest, how much more a philosopher-president-in-waiting, with expertise in dairy farming and asbestos mega-projects?

Sir, have you experienced any of the following: 

Unusual drone activity around your residence and place of work,

Bumping into specific people several times in various supermarket aisles,

Strange noises on your cellphone?

As, I'm sure, Mr Fraser would agree, there are no coincidences in our business.

Stay strong.

Yours in the struggle against foreign espionage agencies.

Richard

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O Tichmann 

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Gone Too Far, Too Far (Tune of Que Sera, Sera)

 It was way back in ninety-four

I asked my buddies what do you see?

Will we be happy, will we be free?
Here's what they said to me

Well, so far so good
It's up to the ANC
The future is ours, you see
Jobs and trip -BE

As time went by and things went south
I asked my buddies what lies ahead?
Will there be rainbows some far-off day?
Here's what my buddies said

Don't give up too soon
Have faith in the ANC
The future's still ours you see
Grants and trip- BE
Just hang on, you'll see 

Now, as the learned lawyer said
Everything's effed up, toe to the head
My buddies ask me, is there some hope
I tell them patiently

Corruption, trip-BE
We're stuck with the ANC

The future's catastrophe
With the ANC
So bizarre, bizarre
Gone too far, too far

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Justice For Zuma

Dear JGZuma Foundation (Official)

"Will the accused please stand," ordered the white-bearded judge, his voice quavering as he clung onto his desk for support.

"He can't, Your Honour", wheezed the defence advocate, leaning heavily on his walking stick (tastefully decorated with latin legal phrases). 

The accused lolled back in his chair, mumbling. I caught snatches: "I know nothing, nothing, nothing" , "WMC counter- revolutioniaries" and the like.

The year was 2040 and we had been playing out similar scenes for some twenty years or more. 

This is the stuff of the nightmares that have been haunting my troubled sleep for months now. Until this your reassuring statement below, for which I am grateful:

'Let's debunk the Myth, Lies and Propaganda.

There's no such thing as 783 charges. It's only 18 Counts.

Let's start with the 1st six.'

#WenzenuZuma

Thank heavens it's only 18 counts. That's nothing. I know of people who've had far more charges - nineteen, twenty...

At least there's a chance that this merry -go  - round might actually come to a stop this century.

I know someone who was found guilty on a mere two charges. I thought that was rather vindictive. The prosecutor was aggressive and antagonistic. A friend told me that that's what his job requires. I find that to be typically colonialist - inspired thinking. I don't see why we can't all be friends. 

I also suspected that the judge might have been captured by a WMC - Stratcom - Rupertist - Gordhanist type coalition. That brought me to the epiphany that our constitution needs changing. I think this Phala Phala inspired nonsense of harassing a giant of RET over a mere 18 charges is....nonsense. Is the constitution not for the people? Who better typifies and symbolizes the struggles of the ordinary South African? I picture him, floating on his back in the fire pool, agonizing over my and your burdens and struggles.

And whatabout Donald Trump, with over four thousand lawsuits even before he became president? An excerpt from USA TODAY:

An exclusive and ongoing USA TODAY analysis of legal filings across the United States finds that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and his businesses have been involved in thousands of legal actions in federal and state courts over the past three decades. They range from skirmishes with casino patrons to million-dollar real estate suits to personal defamation lawsuits.

And the Stratcom / Stellenbosch Cosa Nostra / WMC puppets, running dogs and spies want to make a fuss over eighteen charges! Disgraceful.

I look forward to seeing you dismantle and demolish those charges with the speed, efficiency and effectiveness with which we tend to demolish things in South Africa (infrastructure, institutions etc.).

Yours in the struggle for justice.

Richard 

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Capitec Bank, South Africa  

1378565477

O Tichmann 

+27 833970723