And I mean, you never rule anything out in the politics of this country, because it’s like one constant Bob Mortimer story on Would I Lie To You?. It regularly seems completely fanciful and utterly unbelievable, and then it turns out to be absolutely true.
But this one? No.
Come now. The only imperialist and neocolonialist forces with any influence in the upcoming elections are the Russians and the Chinese, and they’re both right behind the ANC. But they’re got their work cut out, given that the actual voting public are fed up with the lack of service delivery, the loadshedding, the rising crime, the cadre deployment, the constant corruption, the dysfunctional state owned enterprises, the poorly-controlled inflation, the plummeting Rand, and the tossers in charge.
Could any (or all) of those be the reasons that the ANC has been singled out as a party that must lose power?
It’s been a weekend filled with local violence, the occasional threat against Cape Town schoolchildren, more of the usual disinformation and misinformation and more of the usual hyperbole and histrionics.
Unsurprisingly, social media has been a particularly unpleasant place to be, with a complete lack of tolerance throughout, and no willingness or effort to listen to anything that anyone on “the other side” has to say. Ebola has nothing on the replies and threads that follow just about any article of comment on the situation in Israel and Gaza.
If there were such a thing as Biohazard Level 5, this would be it.
Reasonably, I wanted away from real life for a few minutes. I thought that I would find solace in the Daily Challenge on Geoguessr. And indeed, I seemed to have found it when I was unceremoniously – but happily – dumped in some semi-rural backwater in Pennsylvania. Peace. Tranquility. Half a world away from all those problems.
And then I turned myself around and found a glorious metaphor for the world at the moment:
Could it have been put any better? Sadly not.
Anyway, once we were done with that, I was popped into a forest in South East Latvia, which was much less telling about the general worldwide state of things.
We’re less than 6 months away from elections in South Africa. This process will unfortunately result in one (or – worse still – more) of the local political parties trying to form a government. But in the run up to those elections, we can expect populism, bribery, misinformation, disinformation, violence, scapegoating, xenophobia, and a whole raft of untruths and empty promises.
All of which will be lapped up and amplified by a fully dysfunctional, AI-assisted social media, and those dodgy anti-SA sites like Daily Investor and TheSouthAfrican.
It’s started already, with one certain divisive political figure spouting bullshit to anyone who will listen in an effort to be controversial,
Maybe he was thinking of the very similar sport of Nqanqarhu: named for the posh school in the Eastern Cape where Wandile Qwebe-Mwelis first picked up the football and began running with it.
And while this is so clearly and demonstrably incorrect, it’s actually laughable, there are plenty within his party who will believe him. And sadly for us, and the country in general, the polarisation of politics is so great at the moment, that they will then go on to believe him on more serious matters, never mind the fact that he’s merely doing it for clout and votes.
And yes, he got his name into the headlines again. Just what he wanted.
I guess that the positive side of this is that the polarisation of politics is so great at the moment, that it’s unlikely that he will sway anyone into voting for the EFF while talking this sort of nonsense. But it is rather scary that there’s a good possibility that the EFF and this clown may become Kingmakers next year, should the ANC’s demise be as bad as everyone expects.
It’s not like anyone else is doing much better. You’d think that with such a proven disastrous government in place, it would be easy pickings to win the election. But things are more complicated than that: there’s a whole lot of history to overcome for a start, and then there’s the infighting and instability amongst the opposition parties, the ridiculous pipe-dream (is there such a thing as a “pipe-nightmare”?) of “Cape Independence” and the power-crazed individuals driving it, and even the unnecessary stances on the Israel situation.
The aftermath of the elections promises to be a complete mess, but there’s not a lot we can do about that. The run-up to the elections will also be horrific, but keep your calm, don’t believe everything you hear or read, and don’t be fooled into shouting for one side or the other. It won’t get you anywhere.
I had – I still have – a plan for a “proper” post about politics. But wow. While I’m on the mend from the nastier symptoms of that virus, the brain fog, the breathlessness and the fatigue.
It’s really draining and it’s not prompting me to get involved with anything serious or requiring thought this afternoon. (Breathlessness was not a factor here.)
Do narcoleptics feel tired all the time? Or is it just an “I feel fine zzzzzz” thing? I ask because I am constantly on the cusp of falling asleep today. And the dangers are real: a comfortable couch at the piano lesson. The subdued lighting at tonight’s dodgeball practice.
These things don’t help…
So the political post will wait for another day. Sadly, it’s not time sensitive: politics isn’t going anywhere.
> Stage 5 loadshedding: meaning an average of 10 hours without electricity each day.
Here’s our local supermarket’s tongue-in-cheek repsonse:
Yes, those are candles. A huge array of many different types of candle. And yes, that light top right was being powered by a generator.
> There’s a massive fuel price increase this week because the government has f*****d the Rand:
“Motorists are in for a shocking fuel price increase from Wednesday. The price of petrol will go up by R1.71 per litre, diesel by R2.84 and paraffin by R2.78.”
…the elections were marred by controversy – including issues with the voters’ roll, the banning of opposition rallies, reports of biased state media coverage and voter intimidation.
> Cyril will then be heading home to “address the nation”, and tell us that the enquiry by the SA government into whether the SA government supplied arms to Russia has found out that the SA government didn’t supply arms to Russia, but the SA government can’t show us the SA government report exonerating the SA government, because that would “jeopardise the work of the SA armed forces”.
> And all this is being rubbed like salt into an open wound as the ANC shitterati dance with each other while the country falls apart:
“The mood [fire emoji] [fire emoji]”? Is it,? That’s weird, because the mood is very different across everyone else in the country. But then I guess that it’s easy to be happy and dancey when your continual mismanagement, gross incompetence and widespread corruption only negatively affect other people.
