Have you all lost your minds?

I love South Africa. I really do. I spent three months on an Israeli kibbutz after grade 12 and I felt a deep disconnection in my heart for every day that went past when I was not in the country of my birth. My family has lived in this country for at least six generations and I am sure that none of them ever heard anything as stupid as what the ANC puppets are vomiting onto our airwaves in the run up to this years’ general election.

First of all we hear high ranking members of the ruling party declaring that judges who find against the honorable Jacob Zuma in court are counter-revolutionaries and drunkards. As Chief Justice Pious Langa points out in his response to the attack on the character of himself and his colleagues; fair and reasonable criticism of the court’s findings are legitimate and acceptable, however, trying to undermine the legal weight of a judicial order by attacking the character of the judges is what is known as an ad hominem argument.

Ad hominem, literally “to the man”, attacks are a specific type of logical fallacy in which the person making the flawed argument tries to counter anothers arguments by attacking the person rather than addressing the argument itself. We seem to be witnessing an awful lot of ad hominem arguments in SA these days, undoubtably the man at the forefront of the crusade to insult anyone who disagrees with Zuma is Julius Malema, the president of the ANC Youth League. Not only have we been subjected to utterly outrageous calls to “kill for Zuma”, and “eliminate” the forces opposing his political agenda and now it seems to be catching on.

The uncontested Free State chairperson of the ANC, Ace Magashule, urged us this weekend to follow Jacob Zuma like Jesus! WTF? Have we completely lost the plot? That’s Jesus over there on the left cuddling a little lamb. Are we actually being asked to blindly support Jacob Zuma, a man who sits idly by and condones Malema’s calls for blood. What Would Jesus Do?

Magashule actually wants the ANC members to sit quietly and do as they are told, or to put it in his own words,

“If you go to the big churches, you will see there are thousands of people, but they are so quiet and disciplined. We also want to be like that. And we want to show unity in the way we follow Zuma.”

We live in a CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY FOUNDED ON SECULAR PRINCIPLES Mr. Magashule. To suggest that people vote how they are told to vote because that’s what pious Christians would do is utterly outrageous! Your comments undermine our political dispensation and you seem to have completely forgotten the tenets enshrined in the most important document in our country (the Constitution, not the Christian Bible);

From the Bill of Rights (ss 15.1); Everyone has the right to the freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion. What that means is that if I were a card carrying member of the ANC I could damn well express any opinion I felt like, vote for whomever I wanted to and worship (or not) whichever deity I felt an aliegance to.

Wait, I think I have just noticed a striking resemblance between JZ and JC!

Manto’s new cabinet assignment

We all need a good laugh, especially in the current political climate. For all my Souh African readers; enjoy!

Former health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has denied reports that her new job as Minister in the Presidency will be limited to serving double vodka tonics to visiting heads of state and cooking African potato snacks for President Motlanthe.

Her spokesperson also denied that she had been asked to return the new liver she received while health minister.

Speaking to journalists from the Presidency where the Salvation Army was loading the last of Thabo Mbeki’s belongings into a van, spokesperson Clitoris Labuschagne said that just because Tshabalala-Msimang would not have any specific responsibilities, it didn’t mean that she would have no responsibilities whatsoever.

“Mostly she’s there to keep the mood up,” said Labuschagne.

Witches and showtunes

“Tell witty stories about how antiretrovirals turn people into witches, play showtunes on her ukulele, that sort of thing.”

However, she conceded that there would be a limited bartending role for the minister, and confirmed that Tshabalala-Msimang had been entrusted with the Pik Botha Memorial Brandy Decanter.

However, she said this would be a ceremonial position and would not involve much actual drinking, “at least not until everyone goes home at five”.

She also rejected allegations that Tshabalala-Msimang would be a personal chef for President Motlanthe.

“While the Minister does make a delicious quiche using African potatoes, garlic, beetroot, olive oil, denial, belligerence and lingering death, President Motlanthe has indicated that his culinary tastes tend toward more ascetic dishes.”

She said that Motlanthe was trying to cut down on carbs, and that his diet now consisted almost entirely of stem-cells and capitalists.

Labuschagne also used the opportunity to deny that the minister would have to return the liver she received in a 2007 transplant. She attacked the “general belief” that Tshabalala-Msimang “only got the liver because she was health minister at the time, and that she pulled rank to jump the queue”.

She said the people who were calling on her to give back the organ were misguided and racist.

“There are two reasons we can’t give back the liver,” said Labuschagne.

“Firstly, the only three surgeons qualified to do the operation have just emigrated to Australia.

“And secondly, and more importantly, there’s the issue of a replacement donor. We’d need to find a suitably healthy young woman, ideally one who had once supported President Mbeki, kill her, and remove her liver; and ethics approval for that kind of thing can take weeks, even for someone in the Presidency.”

Minister Tshabalala-Msimang could not be reached for comment as she was reportedly preparing a Screaming Orgasm for Jacob Zuma.