The lady from the BBC radio station sat across from me in our lounge, fidgeting with her recording equipment. Her face was serious; perhaps she had not realised I was only joking?
They had driven from Cape Town to Somerset West that morning, she and her lady friend, two very fair-skinned middle-aged dames lost in a city which is the murder capital of the world, in a country ruled by corrupt politicians and vuvuzela-toting soccer maniacs, in a continent where no-one drinks tea with their supper.
They appeared frightened, out of their depth, not really acclimatised to our suffocating summer heat after a season of flooding in Britain.
I still don’t know whether they really expected to see any African wildlife on the drive from central Cape Town to my suburban house nestled between wine and golf estates in this up-market area where I am the proud owner of a bad copy of a two-storied fake Tuscan hacienda which I’m still hanging on to for dear life even though I can’t really afford it in the present economic climate. I don’t really understand why the BBC wanted to interview me about the up-and-coming soccer tournament. I don’t know anything about soccer! I know even less about soccer than I know about 7de Laan.
So, instead of talking about soccer, I started talking about Jacob Zuma.
Bad mistake.
I imagine that that interview I gave to the two British ladies must be broadcast round about now. I cannot think of a worse time for my idiotic views to be broadcast, for all to hear, in a well-informed and civilised country such as England.
I did that interview about a month ago, and in the mean time, everything had changed. Zuma had fallen from grace after a disastrous visit to Britain, and Afrikaans hip-hop became the new craze in world music.
At the time of the interview, I was already a fan of Jack Parow, but I was still under the mistaken impression that somehow Vernon Koekemoer was the main thrust of Afrikaans culture. And — horror of horrors! — I was a fan of Jacob Zuma.
I am still a fan of Jacob Zuma — with the possible exception of Julius Malema, Rian Malan and all of Zuma’s wives who haven’t divorced him yet, I am probably the last Jacob Zuma fan left on the planet! — but these days I no longer defend him as vigorously as in days of old. When Angus Buchan and Helen Zille started praying for the guy, I mumbled along in strained sympathy. I feel let down by my president. I still like his charm, his boyish grin, and his tight-fitting suits, and the fact that he was at last prepared to expose his assets, but I am a worried man.
When the second-last bout of Zuma-bashing in the media reached its frenzied pinnacle — that was the time before people criticised him for his London PR disaster, when they were still worried about his sex life, remember? — I kept my mouth shut. I sat alone in front of my computer in my quiet study, contemplating my next Rapport column and marvelling at the schizophrenia of white South Africans. Yes! Believe it or not, the very same people who loudly applauded a vulgar stage act like Die Antwoord, the same nation who spawned, and admired, such dubious heroes as Joost van der Westhuizen and Steve Hofmeyr, were perfectly ready to crucify Jacob Zuma for openly marrying five women in a row!
Then came the revelation of his lovechild, and I felt a vague stirring of unease. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having a lovechild — I have at least one myself — but that, on top of the five wives, on top of the fact that Zuma never used condoms in a time when the entire nation was ravaged by Aids, on top of the fact that porn on TV might soon be far too easily accessible in a country where women were humiliated and targeted daily, all that sordid stuff made me feel as if the bottom of my world was slowly falling out. If we could not trust Zuma, who could we trust? I mean, especially if Malema might be next in line for the kleptocratic throne!
That was when I began entertaining secret fantasies about Bakkies Botha entering politics.
God knows, we need more people like Bakkies Botha. In politics, in public life, everywhere. Even if he is suffering from a shoulder injury.
Why? Well, Bakkies Botha is a man of few words. He has never written a book. He never makes speeches. He is the kind of guy who never seeks the limelight, he just donners into the scrum — or the loose maul, or whatever you call the tangle of bodies that periodically piles up on any rugby field — and does his job. Unseen, unheard, he dives into that grizzly pile of swearing and sweat, where he throws his punches, where he scratches and claws and works his silent way towards Springbok victory.
He never towers high in the line-outs like Victor Matfield. He hardly ever joins the back-line to pretend to be a centre like Juan Smith. He never graces the front page of magazines like Percy Montgomery or Francois Steyn. He isn’t pretty, or charming, or suave, or sexy, or cool. He is simply Bakkies Botha. He has absolutely no other baggage to carry in life besides being himself. He has the common touch.
There was a time when I believed Zuma had the common touch, too. I mean, anyone who can survive an evening of braaing with Dan Roodt and Leon Schuster must be remarkably resilient, a real man’s man, superhumanly brave almost to the point of idiocy.
And, may I remind you, braaing with Dan Roodt and Leon Schuster was the one thing Thabo Mbeki would never have done. Not even if he was allowed to fly there in his private jet and wear his Gucci suit to the occasion. He was far too “sophisticated” to stoop to such mundane levels.
After we’d all gotten so mighty tired of Thabo Mbeki’s long-winded speeches, his quotes from Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, the millions of conferences he organised, trips he went on, all the useless hot air he generated, Jacob Zuma seemed set to become the ordinary folks’ president. To be quite honest, there was a time, until not so long ago, that I believed Zuma’s political style to be the black equivalent of Bakkies Botha’s style of rugby.
He spoke in plain English. In spite of the clouds of suspicion hanging over home — the arms deal, Shaik, the accusations of rape — he was down to earth and accessible. He simply shook off all those bad things like a dog ridding himself of water. The one moment he was the worst villain of South African politics, the next moment he was Mr Squeaky Clean. He installed a corruption hotline right to his office. He seemed eager to get the job done. He promised swift action against lazy cabinet ministers. He spent literally all his time rolling up his sleeves, metaphorically speaking.
Now, the chickens are coming home to roost, and it appears that all that rolling up of sleeves was just trick photography. Nothing had actually been done. Of what use is the hotline to his office if Mr Zuma is never in his office, but always on honeymoon? The fishermen of the West Coast are still looking for Zuma to look into their quota problem. Service delivery is not improving. Even public relations — Zuma’s strong point up till now — is floundering on a sea of contradictions and recriminations.
It appears that Zuma is like Mbeki, but with more wives, less hair and without the quotes from A Tale of Two Cities.
How I wish I had known all this a few weeks ago when I was doing that radio interview for the BBC.
How I wish I had told them about Bakkies Botha.
The people of Britain have the right to know that we still have guys like Bakkies Botha in this country; men and women who are simply doing their job, day after day, without releasing any new Afrikaans CDs, without sitting back and waiting for regstellende aksie, without suing anybody, or raping anybody, or bumping folk over with their cars, or receiving kickbacks for doing nothing, or organising rock festivals with names ending in “-Stok”, or publishing autobiographies (yes, yes, I know), or ignoring red traffic lights in blue-light cavalcades, or changing the names of towns without any rhyme or reason, or ordering Moët champagne at room service with taxpayers’ money, or denying personal culpability, or evading personal responsibility, or appearing in smutty home videos, or throwing cups of tea at nice ladies, or do any of the ghastly things South African politicians and other people figures seem to be spending absolutely all their time on.
This is what I should have told the ladies from the BBC. I have should have told them that we still have people like Bakkies Botha.
Millions of them.
Ordinary people. People without massive ideological chips on their shoulders. People who just want to get on with their jobs, their families, and looking after their dogs. All they are asking for is clean water, safe streets, working toilets and a minimum income. These are the people so disrespectfully called “the masses” by guys like Julius Malema, as if they are not people at all but mere blobs of protoplasm ready to ooze out of their shacks at a moment’s notice and go marching just to satisfy the whims of the new fat cats, for whatever ridiculous reason, whether it be to protest against Nedbank, or to nationalise Medi-Clinic, or persuade Helen Zille to give up Satanism, or whatever.
I’ve got news for people like Malema. The so-called “masses” are marching already. And this time round, they’re not marching for any political party or ideology. This time round, they’re not carrying placards. They’re carrying nothing but their own empty stomachs, and they’re marching not out of obedience to any leader but simply because they want South Africa back in working order.
And these millions of Bakkies Botha, irrespective of race, colour or creed, will not go on voting for the ANC indefinitely.
First we’ll take Manhattan, then Berlin, and finally, via Bellville and Ermelo and Ravensmead and Phillipi, we might even take Soweto.
Never mind how lazy and careless our present government may have become, never mind how top-heavy and inept our command structures and new elite, I simply refuse to stop believing in the courage and resourcefulness and sheer tenacity of ordinary South Africans.
Viva, Bakkies! Laduma, men and women of the rainbow nation!
Who needs lions when you’ve got all these great people?
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60 Responses to “The unbearable lightness of being Bakkies Botha”
Unfortunately, your satanical …oops, I meant satirical, tounge-in-cheek style of dissing the black government does nothing to shine the light on the REAL ISSUES stalking our country. Try speaking the TRUTH for a change!
Yo! Nice piece. For me the power of Bakkies is when you see him pop up out of the loose maul and he is smiling. Ten thousand pounds of bone-breaking pressure and he’s just laughing. He is workhorse because he loves that shit. He loves his job and couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
Thank you, Mr. Kombuis, had a good chuckle reading your article.
@Dave Harris, pray what issues has he not ’shone some light on?’ And why is he dissing the ‘black’ government? He is just dissing … the government (notice the way I didn’t include black there.) Please point out the untruths in this article (which is what you insinuate). That way we can all be in the know as to what is really going on. I’m guessing you are going to tell me that the REAL ISSUES in our country are still ‘racism and capitalist supremacy’ (or some equally mundane party babble.)
If you will not admit that our current government is essentially incapable of putting a foot right, then you need to back your claims up with some solid proof to the contrary - none of which I’ve seen from you.
I agree with Dave Harris. Particularly your presumption that because the media critisizes Mbeki as though their views were universal, you are therefore entitled to spread falsehoods about him or any of our leaders for that matter.
Dave - Please read the piece again and tell us where you find any mention of “black government”. The only racial comment I saw on the page was in your reply. Koos - Your reference to the masses as “protoplasm” was spot on. It reminds me of a quote by a Nat minister’s wife hosting a tea party: “Ek wil graag tee drink saam met die gewone mense”.
Ha ha - I like your music and now I like your writing style too! Nice piece, Koos. I don’t know much about rugby, despite being dragged to matches as a kid to watch family members play - and I don’t know anything about Bakkies Botha - but I agree with you about “the masses”. There are tons of ordinary, decent South Africans of all races, who just want to live in peace and get on with their lives. I fear, though, that this is a long way off: There seem to be too many people hell-bent on destroying our beloved country. With all of my relatives still in S.A., I watch from the distant shores of my new home, the U.S., and I worry. I know many here probably feel that expats have no right to make comments but there are so many of us who still have family in S.A. and that means we are still involved, like it or not. I keep hoping and praying for things to get better, but so far, in vain. One wonders where it will all end.
I also tried to see the good in Zuma. He hides it well. Malema is gas in a bag and I fondly imagine him meeting the Ninja from Die Antwoord, sucking up his courage to deliver his roly poly “kill the Boer” song from his pudgy muffin face in front of that crazy mullet. I think he might get bliksemed, both musically and intellectually.
We need Bakkies and we need Frodo Baggins. Nobody in charge seems to be able to resist the ring. Absolute power corrupts absolutely but the wheel will turn and the pigs will be chased from the trough, eventually.
@dave it seems to me that the issues addressed in @koos’s blog might in your mind have to do with different people’s race groups but they actually have nothing to do with that. They have to do with human behaviour, behaviour that is useful to the rest of us and behaviour that is only, perhaps in the short term, useful to the perpetrator themselves and not at all useful to the rest of us.
Isn’t it sad how some just insist on defending ideology, rhetoric and their political party, regardless of reality and the TRUTH! Whatever we vote, whatever our leaning, the TRUTH is that SA Inc. is currently OUT OF ORDER! If you disagree with that you have your head in the sand and maybe somewhere else! I belong to no political party, because I disagree with caring only for one’s own, and that’s what all political parties across the globe do! SA’s issues are not political, they are human, and until we start recognising the pain and suffering of people, regardless of the free political party T-shirt they wear, we will never move boldly towards solving our problems. That is the problem with governments world-wide and certainly with ours, past and present!
There are thousands of Bakkies Botha’s out there willing giving of their time, money and skills for the people of SA! They ask nothing in return and you don’t know them, because they are real people who do what they do because it’s the right thing to do, not because they seek the limelight and want to be photographed in their tux handing over the cheque to da Minista! Politicians could learn so much from these Bakkies Botha’s but they probably never will, because they serve political parties, not people, simple people!
Koos *is* speaking the truth, it just so happens to be in an entertaining manner. Positioning the tongue in the cheek doesn’t necessarily dislodge the brain.
I, for one, am also growing weary of the sociopolitical soap opera we live in. I’d like to see less razzle-dazzle and show antics, and more action.
A great article - the Bakkies Botha example is a good one - there are many unsung heroes of all races in SA, those who get on and do the job. Ordinary citizens are our greatest assets, and the ‘masses’ are not the brainless protoplasm some of our ‘leaders’ wish they were. There is a new maturity about the state of play in SA, one which seems no longer to uncritically accept political ‘leaders’ as demigods with the unquestionable rights to ride roughshod over all citizens. There is a move to see the government and The Party as being answerable to the citizens, a welcome breath of fresh air which is the sign of a maturing real democracy, rather than the old paradigm of the all-powerful party being above the leaders who are above the government who are above the state who are above the people (Bakkies Botha at the bottom of the scrum). There is hope for SA and for all its people.
JA NEE Koos, watching from the sidelines, enjoying a rugby player ‘donner’ into a scrum and ‘throw his punches..’. Thats how you see it from the sidelines, how you would want it, that is your armchair frustration and anger beeing vented. I don’t think you are doing a great player justice by dragging him into an argument, that just serves your self justification. It always seems to involve dragging other people into a fray, you have no guts to enter. How many people have you just drawn into this article, following the ‘throw a little mud, some of it will stick’ method ? Truth as I see it is that you have no ground to stand on, except sow division, and cash in on that.
Err, Koos, that hotline thingie, is actually the auditing process at work. He is just chekking to see if he is getting his fair cut of the corruption pie.
I live in a country where then name, let alone the face of Bakkies Botha is absolutely unknown. So I thought it was an imaginary figure like vdMerwe.
No wonder Dave Harris is so upset because both bakkies and the other goofs mentionedd are real life and so are their actions and/or absense thereof.
Koos, jy het my dag gemaak (you have made my day)!
It is sad that millions of hungry stomachs become the “masses” that will one day, if ever, get their fair share of the pie… all while Julius gets pie after pie (and doesn’t even pay his taxes for them!)
The ordinary South African must become then post-apartheid revolutionary.
Dont know which masses you are talking about but they seem to like Malema and Zuma (in that order) ooooh right. It eople like you and the newspapers that dont like them.
Get this right KOOS black people admire people with 5 wives. they are looked up to not looked down upon.Its a white thing this polygamy bashing. No serious black person bashes it. I have lived with polygamy all my life see nothing wrong with it.Consenting adults and all that.
Homosexuality on the other hand I have not lived with. But based on the principle of consenting adults its ok by me as long as its not proffered to me.
Whats my point with the homosexuals. its this.
Take a homosexual and a polygamist (both politicians )to soweto and the homosexual will not get 1% of the vote because they are not used to homosexuals.
Please get it through your head polygamy is normal. I note a lot of black bloggers commented on Zumas lovechild especially with daughter of friend but hardly any commented on polygamy.
The black voters could not give a toss about polygamy. Its normal. please get it. Its as normal as a person in sydney australia going to the Gay Madi gras on a float.you will not convince black people polygamy is not right no matter how you try.
You will become irrelevant if you cant embrace peoples cultures and beliefs. like tryng to stop animal offerings to ancestors in kwazulu
Predictably Dave Harris was the first critic of this hilarious piece. Dave, you should come clean. You are a black man educated in a (previously) white school: a private school or a Model C school. I find it strange that you should choose a pseudonym like Dave Harris. Are you ashamed of your black background? Why not rather call yourself Vuyo or Philemon or something like that? By coming up with your ridiculous defence of the indefencible, i.e. corruption, loose morals etc of the current self-appointed black elite, you are giving blacks a bad name. I can understand when black respondents say that Zuma (and Malema) are above the law, because they are plainly spudid, but someone like you, Philemon, should know that you will gain the respect of your fellow-countrymen and the world if you recognise and condemn corruption when you see it, like most every-one else. Think about it!
Koos, help me understand your “struggle credentials” in your profile - so during the 70s and 80s, when millions of NAMELESS and FACELESS black kids had the foresight to sacrifice their second-rate education and sometimes paid the ultimate price to bring down apartheid, you began your singing career by attention grabbing “anti-aparteid” songs only in 1989??? Hmmm… one wonders why you REALLY chose those songs after the writing was already on the wall.
Now your pretentious BS satire becomes clearer - the government is corrupt and we need the “White Saviour” like Bakkies Botha to save this country but you conveniently fail to say how exactly these Bakkies Bothas, with their supernatural white power will achieve anything. Furthermore, these Bakkies Bothas are DIRECT BENEFICIARIES of apartheid and too used to white-AA to make ANY significant contributions to our society. If they haven’t done it in the last two decades what make you think that they EVER will. Most of these Neanderthals are incapable of competing on a level playing field, let alone on the world stage.
Unlike during apartheid, now its easy for your ilk to use our hard fought for free speech rights, to constantly diss the people now in power- democratically elected by a LANDSLIDE MAJORITY but beware, you run the danger of of re-creating your own Zimbabwe right here in SA.
@Carla Bauer
The least you can do from your vantage point, is speak out against injustices in our society, regardless of your views! Don’t propogate the mindset of the previously privileged who essentially condoned the evil apartheid regime with their silence. Look who has to pay now for the sins of their forefathers!
@Paul Alvarez
“SA’s issues are not political, they are human, and until we start recognising the pain and suffering of people, …”
Pray tell, what are these “human issues”? Does it have ANYTHING to do with centuries of white supremacy and oppression or are racial tensions flaring because of global warming?
@Nkadimeng Moroana
Yes, isn’t it amazing how creative, people like Koos can suddenly become, in constantly ignoring the elephant in the room, especially when it comes to speaking about our countries problems?
Wow! What a treat of literary genius!! Apart from the incisively perceptive analysis of the current sad situation in the conduct of politicians in S.A., your fine hilarious literary style is a pleasure to read. Your paragraph beginning with: “Ordinary people ….” ending with “Or whatever” is the kernel of the truth of your analysis of the status quo. You should be nominated for a “Pulitzer” on this.
Irrelevant and ignorant comments like Dave Harris’[12th March, 4.27 pm] make no contribution to any serious discussion on this Forum and can be safely ignored. Thanks for this gem.
Funnily true piece Mr Kombuis. Reading through the comments here, I realised that we have a new disease in South Africa that is reaching epidemic status without the CDC even being aware of it. It probably slipped the net because it is not fatal, just intensely off-putting and embarrasing like bad breath. Denialism. When I see the word “falsehoods being spread about our leadership”, I firstly always wonder when and why we inherited the politburo from the former USSR and secondly when someone is going to try and find a cure for the abovementioned disease.
I second Bakkies for president (don’t really care what party he belongs to) but would suggest Evita Bezuidenhout as his left hand person. One do after all need to keep a balance between guileless straight shooting and the more Machiavellian arts as practiced by the other countries’ leaders and major business players. Sort of like and internal and external president.
@Carla Bauer & RubinB - Strange as it may sound, one do get totally misguided, highly indoctrinated retoric spewing off-white people as well. Stupidity is a fairly evenly spread trend right through the spectrum of races.
A realist at last. Koos, you have exposed the rotten belly of the current government and given it a kick to release the noxious fumes of corruption, nepotism and overt racism. The defenders must like decay and people like Dave Harris are just vultures scavenging their dignity from the twitching corpse that is the new, unimproved, South Africa.
awesome read. i play a bass guitar in an afrikaans folk rock band and we do a cover of a song called awb tiete (that we enjoy slightly amending the lyrics to occasionally)… i’ll be thinking about this next weekend when we play it again.
@haiwa tigere: wtf? “polygamy is normal.” sorry nobody can help you out with your group sex fantasies there. i can recommend some great vids that might help though.
Great Article Koos. It goes with my philosophy of ‘WWBBD’ - ‘What Would Bakkies Botha Do.’ This is a snippet of a story from a recent rather (un)forgettable experience living in Mainland China
“I guess the saying ‘what goes on tour stays on tour’ would normally apply for this story, but let me break ranks and mention it anyway. It concerns a post gym shower habit shared by way too many Chinese men and one that I will always struggle to see as normal. Picture this: you have just had a tough work out at the local gym and are heading to the lockers after a cold shower. And then, with a shock, you see a Chinese guy sitting with his legs spread-eagled in front of a large changing room mirror, while blow drying his pubic hair. It sends shivers down my testosterone hormones. In cases like this I revert to the tried and tested WWBBD philosophy: What Would Bakkies Botha Do? Try as I might, I could never imagine an epic ‘All Black House of Pain Test Match’ with Bakkies drying his nether regions after the match shower!”
Some oke Joe from Canada reckons you’re an irrelevant doos! We gotta put him right! How’s about you & I form a tag team!
Dave you are beyond a joke! You always fail to debate the topic, go off at tangents and then start playinging the man!
Find solutions Dave. People are suffering in this country and like a political clown you turn everything into a political debate!
Your comments are inconsequential because you just criticise, rather than debating & finding solutions! Julius is waiting for you to help write his next tirade of nonsense!
I enjoyed this, Koos Kombuis seem mercifully free of the inferiority complex that grips most Afrikaners leading them to manifests that iron-willed ignorance and pig-headed boastful victimhood that we are so familiar with.
Koos, a brilliant article. It was a good chuckle. I believe the Harris’s are not in tune with the reality of what is actually happenning in SA. (Too caught up in the black white thing to be objective)You are absolutely spot on, the march has begun, soon we shal see far more burning tyres than we would like but be assured it will happen.
Amen, Koos. Regarding our current crop of Blue Light & Room Service leaders, Winston Churchill once said: “Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.”
Koos, it doesn’t matter whether you worship Msholozi Zuma or Bakkies Botha. It does matter that you worship (or “follow”) ANYBODY. Rather don’t follow a person, follow principles. Then you can judge every action on its merits, and you don’t have to agonise over what to say. Something is either right or wrong IN PRINCIPLE (unlike Zuma who has to say “Personal enrichment is a bad thing *but you can keep the Merc, Sbu*”). This bloody people-worship and poephol worship is what stuffs us.
(and shouldn’t you amend “famous Fokkol Song, which contains at least sixty-nine swear words, (excluding the word “Eskom”) to: “70 swear words (including the word “Eskom”).
@Dave Harris, you wrote: … during the 70s and 80s, when millions of NAMELESS and FACELESS black kids had the foresight to sacrifice their second-rate education….
You, being a black man, seemingly did not have that foresight, and got a very good education in a private or Model C school, otherwise where does your good English come from?
You should learn to debate the subject at hand rather than shooting the messenger.
I, for one, will criticize and poke fun at any and all corrupt leaders, regardless of your efforts to get my eye off the ball. And I am sure that goes for everyone else participating.
Or would you like to spell out who you think may criticize? It would make interesting reading.
And lastly, do you believe your current leaders are above the law and above criticism? I am referring to people like Zuma and Malema and their hangers-on.
Come on, Dave, give us your opinion, without getting into our backgrounds, of which you know nothing.
Man I love my country and rather than leave I am willing to scrum down with ANY South African who is willing to work towards it being a safier, happier and more prosperous home for all of us.
dankie Koos, weereens is jou nugter opmerkings spot on. ek wil net graag vra: waar is al jou ‘peers’. al die ander middeljarige mense (wit, swart en bruin) wat deur die ’struggle’ gegaan het. wat geveg het teen die monster en wat insig kan bied aan jong mense (soos ek) van vandag, dis onmoontlik (ek flippen hoop) dat hul almal in angus buchan en sy maatjies se lokval in geval het. HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE
ps. ek weet net nie so mooi vir wie die ‘massas’ gaan stem as hul nie anc stem nie, daar’s ‘n tammeletjie vir jou…
@Dave Harris (my two cents): what on earth are you on about? a few weeks back you contributed a piece in which you said something like it would be a nice idea to go and watch a football game with someone of another race… (i’m paraphrasing, couldn’t be bothered to look it up) and yet you litter this site with your hypocritical dribble? enough already dude.
btw, it’s just physically impossible for anybody to ‘re-create *your own* zim right here in sa’… we all live here, right? unless you mean declare your own sovereign state and deliberately run it to the ground… doesn’t make sense. but hey, you live in your own world already so none of that would affect you.
Koos I take umbrage ….how can you compare a lout,thug and a person not known for adhering to the ethos of fair play and good sportsmanship to the ordinary law abiding SA citizen, the cogs keeping the wheels of SA going…you again prove the old age adage, a truism since time immemorial (scribbled on the walls of cave dwellings in gorgeous Mzansi…Koos is ‘n D@@S..)
Great to hear from you Koos. I think alot of a certain group of South Africans live in the hope that finally uplifts your description of what things are like; that the people will take a firm grip, and yank a new party into power and our political evolution will get to the next level. What if that doesn’t happen though. Crowds are cheering Malema at the University of Jhb, and singing along to his unfortunate song. President Zuma has alot of support. Very importantly it will be seen as unpatriotic and against the revolution to vote against the ANC for a long time to come. Robert Mugabe himself has alot of support and didn’t have to do very much rigging relatively to win a fake election.
This I think is el numero uno problemo. At this stage the most likely scenario is that there is very little reason why South Africa won’t develop in the same way as the rest of Africa. The injustices of the past have trapped the people of the South in the same way as everyone else. Trapped into being victims of this colossal disruption in their history and culture, and having to find a way of acknowledging themselves to have been a defeated people, but still believing that they have it in themselves to achieve the greatest things possible.
Holy mackerel Dave Harris… What planet are you from? Your “struggle ideas” became obsolete twenty years ago. Let me guess, you are Julius Malema in disguise and the fact that you can’t address the facts or the truth makes you resort to the obsolete “black and white racial style” of politics.
It IS about humans or people not about skin colour. We have a serious problem in this country BECAUSE of rhetoric with no real substance or solutions. Just an empty can rattling more than the filled ones next to you. The comments in this piece are accurate. We don’t need hot air or noise in this country, we need people who just get on with their job…
@RubinB
As I said to you before, its shameful to see someone in this day and age trying to determine someone’s race race rather than respecting anonymity on this forum. Stop making a fool of yourself with your racist comments, your indoctrination blurs your thinking. There are reasons why this forum is structured so that people, like you, can use pseudonyms.
Rather than pathetically groveling for attention, try addressing the issues for a change and make a contribution to the discussion.
@radiodave
Are you just being silly or are you a teenager using your parents computer? We can recreate Zim right here in SA if we continue to ignore the racial economic disparity that resulted from centuries of discrimination and brutal opression. Time is ticking…
Dave, I don’t know how you sleep at night but I trust you sleep well tonight!
Allow me to try another track with you, because to date we’ve just rubbed each other up the wrong way. May I challenge you to approaching this forum as a high school debate, as they are actually very enlightening and amazingly accurate, and not as a parliamentary debate, all of which I’ve viewed have been infantile and childish? This is not opinion, but rather what I have watched and experienced from all participating political parties, so I’m bashing them all!
I know you’re intelligent Dave but I struggle to understand how you think because you generally just abuse everyone, so can we agree to following a structured approach as in a debating society, keeping to the topic, without hesitation, repitition or deviation?
Funny you should say that Paul, here is a sampling of YOUR infantile “debating skills”
“Some oke Joe from Canada reckons you’re an irrelevant doos! ”
“Dave you are beyond a joke! ”
“… like a political clown you turn everything into a political debate!”
“Your comments are inconsequential because you just criticise…”
Listen Paul, if I was interested in high school debates, I’d become a teacher in a high school…possibly like you
Well I tried & failed Dave, so I’ll just have to keep changing myself and remain baffled by your postings which only criticise, and surely cannot help change our beloved land!
I watched the motion of no confidence in JZ in parliament today, which was overturned resulting in a vote of confidence, due to the majority vote. Fact remains most of the speeches were poor, and because the majority gets their way, does not mean the majority is right, only rather that they are the majority! Because you abuse everyone here, does not mean you are right Dave! I intentionally gave you a taste of your own medicine in my last posting, and you responded exactly as expected, but deep down I was hoping…………praying in fact, that you had it in you to take up the challenge to find solutions for our beautiful country, rather than slagging its citizens with whom you don’t agree!
History will judge us Dave, all of us, you, me and the government!
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Koos Kombuis is an Afrikaans columnist, bilingual author and retired rock musician. In spite of his numerous attempts to settle down and conform, his career has been dogged by controversy ever since he was banned from performing his anti-apartheid songs on several university campuses in 1989.
Born André le Roux du Toit, he rejected his own French roots to change his name in 1990. His first English novel, the feminist allegory Paradise Redecorated (now mercifully out of print), was published shortly afterwards. During the last years of the reign of George W Bush, he almost scored an international hit with a controversial satire The Secret Diary of God, but fundamentalist Christians started an internet petition against it, and numerous bookstore owners in the US refused to stock the book. His latest publication, the autobiographical work Short Drive to Freedom has sparked fierce criticism and even legal threats from disgruntled people in the music industry. Since 2008, the Channel 24 MP3 Hit Parade has been dominated by various remakes of his famous Fokkol Song, which contains at least sixty-nine swear words, (excluding the word "Eskom"), a possible candidate for the Guinness Book of Records.
According to Koos, the happiest and most expressive time of his life was the five minutes he spent illegally in France somewhere around 1993, when he leopard-crawled from the Belgian side past a French border-post to have a crap in a corn field in the country of his forefathers before crawling back to Belgium to find toilet paper.
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Unfortunately, your satanical …oops, I meant satirical, tounge-in-cheek style of dissing the black government does nothing to shine the light on the REAL ISSUES stalking our country. Try speaking the TRUTH for a change!
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