Hands off Bernice Swarts, the deputy minister at the centre of the manufactured outrage inside her own party over her “one family, one loaf” campaign.
The reason I’m reticent about commenting on politics is not so much because I am inept when it comes to this topic, but rather because I find politics mind-numbingly wearisome. I’m only tackling Bread Bernie’s recent woes as an open application letter to politicians seeking to fill spin-doctor vacancies. I hope that when I’m done, ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu will hang her head in shame for hanging Albany Bernie, that revolutionary daughter of the soil, out to dry. Had her breadcrumb stunt been lauded by vicious zealots on social media, Bernie would have been promoted to the cabinet come the next round of musical chairs.
Before I’m eviscerated by the humourless hordes, let me hasten to add a disclaimer. South Africans have earned themselves a fearsome reputation as internet savages. In a recent interview, Trevor Noah spoke candidly about how his team lives in morbid fear of South Africans’ online responses to his schtick when they are displeased. We wield acerbic humour like a sharpened axe precisely to deal with fundamentally unfunny situations. It’s our trauma response — a kind of coping mechanism. For instance, there is nothing remotely funny about the number of South Africans so egregiously battered by our government’s abject failure to improve our appalling 0.7% annual economic growth rate.
I believe history will judge One-Loaf Bernie kindly. After all, as the English proverb goes, half a loaf is better than none.
Let me digress, with the promise I will self-correct later, much like the glorious movement that leads us. My mother became comfortable with sending me to the shops alone only when I was about seven. She would hand me a folded R1 note and ask me to buy two loaves of bread, onions, tomatoes and a can of baked beans — and she expected change when I returned. This was in 1979, when a loaf of brown bread cost a mere 15c.
I remember how KwaZulu chief minister Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi called for a white-bread boycott because the authorities had announced a 3c price hike — from 18c to 21c a loaf. Back then, South African bakeries seemed not entirely convinced of the merit of bread slicers. Back then, bread knives were still in everyday use and employed in bread battles in families across the land. I remember one of my neighbours, Fana, chastising his sister, Mtu, for cutting his slices thinner than hers. I’m sad to note that my bread-slicing technique is now in tatters for want of practice.
Anyway, I believe history will judge One-Loaf Bernie kindly. After all, as the English proverb goes, half a loaf is better than none. She handed out a loaf to each family — more than all her detractors put together. To put things biblically, let those among you who have provided two loaves per family hurl the first loaf at Bernie. Also, verily I say unto thee, “Oh ye of little faith!” How soon everyone forgets that the Nazarene with blond hair and blue eyes fed a 5,000-strong crowd with only five loaves at his disposal.
Look, in her defence, at least our very own bread warrior does not harbour the Marie Antoinette brand of tone deafness. At least she knows people need bread, not January 8 cake. She certainly did not go around yelling, “Let them shower at the Holiday Inn” or “Why don’t they just apply for jobs?” The latter has become a new trend, as the grip on reality of those who occupy the corridors of power exponentially increases.
Perhaps we need to ask whether Edward de Bono, “the father of lateral thinking”, would endorse Bernie’s campaign. For 8,000 years, since the Sumerians first introduced it, the inhabitants of the Middle East have adopted a “wait and see” approach to leavened bread. It’s an observation that prompted De Bono to suggest sending container loads of Marmite to the region to ease tensions. According to him, the lack of yeast in the diets of those who live there leads to zinc deficiency, which makes folks cranky. Bernie obviously understood that a family that breaks bread together is in a better mood and stays together.
I now invite comments, repudiations and mockery in respect of my assertions from all the keyboard warriors out there. But I’d also like to appeal to the spin-doctoring community at large to grade my paper. How well have I done at “clarifying” that the deputy minister was “quoted out of context”?
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