In a country struggling with violent crime, gangsterism and corruption at the highest levels, somebody thought it would be a good idea to send the SAPS’s supposedly elite unit, the Hawks, to raid the home of — wait for it — a TikTok comedian.
A satirical video posted by one Anton Taylor got suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu so angry he went and laid a charge at a police station. Now there is no crime in Mchunu being so thin-skinned, but it's what the police did next that is of concern. Instead of advising the suspended minister to approach the courts if he felt defamed, police bosses saw it fit to set the specialised crime-fighting unit loose on the comedian — raiding his home and questioning him about his post. All of this in a country with a constitution that guarantees freedom of expression!
Hogarth can only concur with DA MP Lisa Schickerling, who, on hearing the shocking news, remarked: “What the Hawks thought they would find by turning Mr Taylor’s home inside out, when the 'offending’ video was posted online, is anyone’s guess. Were the allegedly offensive remarks drifting around his living room?”
AI gets into the spin of things
Hogarth acknowledges that ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has one of the toughest jobs in South Africa. Not only does he have to fill the shoes of such giant past ANC secretaries-general as Walter Sisulu, Alfred Nzo and Kgalema Motlanthe, he has to do so at a time when the party’s popularity is at its lowest point.
But surely this doesn't mean he should be allowed to cope with the pressure by simply dismissing all reality as “fake news”. The other day at an ANC press conference, reporters asked him about a scathing statement on the party’s leadership, particularly its president, Cyril Ramaphosa, made by former international relations minister Naledi Pandor.
While Mbalula was within his rights to try to spin the whole thing as part of “robust debate” within the ruling party, Hogarth was puzzled when the ANC sec-gen then said “AI” had been used to distort some of what Pandor said about the lack of leadership.
Could it be Mbaks thinks “AI” is another word for “quoted out of context?”
The bourgeoisie get a break
Long before former Cosatu House employee Floyd Shivambu hijacked the colour red and made it the property of his friend and ex-ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, Hogarth used to think the country’s capitalist class had real enemies in the trade union federation and its major tenant at its then headquarters, the SACP.
But it would seem all that Leninist zeal and rhetoric disappeared with the advent of the EFF and the formation of new trade union organisations not affiliated to the tripartite alliance. The T-shirts may still be red, but these days the SACP and Cosatu hardly say anything about their alleged class enemy — the bourgeoisie. All the anger seems directed to their supposed alliance partner, the ANC. With “partners” like these, who needs enemies?
Never too old for radio ...
Helen Zille hosted a three-hour show on Power 98.7 this week as part of that station’s Women’s Month celebrations. But, of course, her political rivals saw this as part of the grand plan to have the 75-year-old elected Johannesburg mayor in next year’s local government elections.
Being much older than her, it is not Hogarth’s place to suggest Zille is too old for the job.
But given (no pun intended there, Power 98.7 owner Mr Given Mkhari) the enthusiasm with which the listeners welcomed her show, perhaps it would not be a bad idea for her to join the station full time. After all, it is already home to at least one other retired politician.
Time Juju brushed up on his history
While Zille is allegedly winning the hearts and minds of Dada Morero-fatigued Joburgers, one of her political rivals appears to have now set his sights far beyond the Union Buildings and the confines of our borders. Julius “Juju” Malema was welcomed like a real hero in Lagos, Nigeria, earlier this week. The EFF leader didn’t disappoint, delivering a resounding keynote speech at the conference.
Hogarth, however, wonders how most of Nigeria received his “demand” for “a borderless Africa ... with one president, one currency, one military command and one parliament”. Nigeria, after all, became a “federal republic” because the majority of its inhabitants never accepted a “unitary state” where all the power was centralised in Abuja. Does Malema thinks they would accept a “unitary” continental government run from, say, Addis Ababa or Pretoria?
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