Fog Donkey

A wonderful piece here by Richard Poplak on the parody twitter account of the new star in the shambles that was the Memorial for Madiba in Johannesburg on Tuesday. We’ve moved on from Selfiegate, forgotten that Zuma got booed and, having completely ignored Mandela himself, we’re now looking at the seemingly ever more bizarre and inconceivable story of the fake interpreter. I didn’t really agree with Richard’s first piece on the Memorial, but this is gospel:

The Memorial Signer holds the only flashlight in the midnight dark of the rabbit hole. Follow him, my friends, and no other. For he leads us to the only truth worth hearing: there are no truths at all worth hearing.

Such parody accounts only really work for a short while – infamy is transient – but while they do, it’s an opportunity to have a smile during what has otherwise been a pretty crappy week for South Africa.

Things we shouldn’t forget about: Nkandla and the fact that Jacob  Zuma allegedly just signed the Protection of State Information Act 41 of 2013 “Secrecy Bill” while we were all looking the other way (c.f. Jo Moore’s “A Good Day To Bury Bad News” Memo of 2001).

UPDATE: And @MemorialSigner ties it all together wonderfully:

[redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [censored] #POSIB

— MemorialSigner (@MemorialSigner) December 12, 2013

Lending strength to Poplak’s assertion that he was the only sane person on that stage on Tuesday.

UPDATE 2: Yes, as Jacques points out below, the SA Media has us all of a tizz by wrongly announcing that the POSIB had been signed into law. (And thus providing an excellent case for greater regulation of the media. Well done.)