South Africa

DISINFORMATION

TRAINSPOTTER: The Eleventh Baby — the unmaking of South African reality

TRAINSPOTTER: The Eleventh Baby — the unmaking of South African reality
AI Image Generator, prompt 'Vladimir Putin as a baby' | gencraft.com

President Ramaphosa, along with his cohort of friends and enemies, has broken South African reality. Can we get it back?

“[R]eality is not a function of the event as event, but of the relationship of that event to past, and future, events. We seem here to have a paradox: that the reality of an event, which is not real in itself, arises from other events which, likewise, in themselves are not real” — Robert Penn Warren  

Born again. And again. And again.

In June 2021, a bad time for Earth by any measure, the beleaguered nation of South Africa received a bundle of joy. Ten bundles, actually. An “exclusive” story informed us that a woman named Gosiame Thamara Sithole had given birth to decuplets — the official term for twins times five, or triplets times three plus one, or quadruplets times two plus twins. 

They were dubbed the Tembisa Ten.

The maths, to say nothing of the obstetrics, was mind-boggling. Ten babies are a lot to emerge from one person in one stirruping. But there was Sithole on the front page of the Pretoria News, presumably hours before giving birth(s), pictured in a pink dress concealing what would on later inspection resemble an overinflated yoga ball.

Happy stories are not common in South Africa, and so the decuplets were greeted with a mixture of joy and wonder, but mostly with memes. As is the way of these things, the story went globally viral for about a third of a news cycle. But even for amateur South African media watchers, there were signs that this tale would not meet the smell test — and we’re not just talking about the diapers.

For one thing, the news was broken by a veteran investigative journalist named Piet Rampedi. As far as truth is concerned, Rampedi has never had much use for the stuff in a professional context. He was one of the key misinformation pedlars in the Sunday Times “Rogue Unit” series, during which the paper helped launder the fiction that the South African Revenue Service harboured a secretive investigations unit tasked with hounding political enemies, former president Jacob Zuma’s cabal primary among them.

Rampedi was dismissed after the Sunday Times attempted a course correction following the scandal, and he whined about his mistreatment to all who would listen. Among those paying attention were the Gupta brothers, Zuma’s main mafia backers, and the bunch of ANC elite who, allegedly, funded a start-up Rampedi news outlet that no one — not even Rampedi, apparently — remembers. But South Africa is the land of the fabled Third Chance, and Rampedi’s skills as a bullshitter were summarily retained by Independent Media, a money-laundering scam owned by the Sauron of bullshitters, Dr Iqbal Survé.

Independent — a misnomer, sadly — is just one of the many businesses festering inside a Sauron-family-owned Sekunjalo conglomerate that also ultimately controls the infamous AYO Technology Solutions. Independent’s the only business owned by Surve with an actual mandate — which is to spread mis- and disinformation on behalf of a shifting brace of factions within the ANC, all of whom hope to depose the current leadership.

Just over five or so years ago, AYO received R4.3-billion from the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), the ostensible manager for the custodian of hundreds of billions of rands of retirement funds belonging to millions of South African government workers, through the Government Employees’ Pension Fund (GEPF).

The PIC also has a mandate — to help grow the South African economy through judicious investment in local industry. Under former director Dan Matjila, the PIC became just another money funnel for connected shysters, and AYO was a major beneficiary. (Just recently, the PIC clawed back a small portion of the money it invested in Iqbal’s grift, but who’s kidding whom?)

In other words, the 10 babies were born into a contextual framework of extreme corruption and weaponised lying. The story was obviously a hoax, but Independent doubled down, insisting that the infants were whisked away by Nigerian doctors in league with the government, and then trafficked into slavery in some ghastly African dystopia. Independent’s videographers produced a documentary alleging as much, and even after an in-house investigation revealed the story’s deficiency of fact, Rampedi kept insisting he could hear the wails of the babies — far away in the Gold Coast or Zimbabwe or Zaire — where they were being subjected to the horrors of non-South African languages.

It took more than 18 months, but Rampedi was recently released from his duties at The Pretoria News/Independent. We await his Fourth Chance as one does the fitting of a colostomy bag.

(In the meantime, the hapless The Pretoria News itself was released from its very existence — after 125 years, the title met the end of its history. — Ed)

But why lie about this particular story with such vigour? We tend to think of disinformation as hermeneutical, as open to endless interpretation. We also think of it as an airless, odourless technological expression of 21st-century warfare. In doing so, we fail to understand it as poetry — as a roar of rage from our collective subconscious. We are a species suffering through enormous change in a short space of time, which challenges our famous capacity for adaptation.

Has the world ever moved at such speed? Unlikely.

Born not to a virgin but to a yoga ball, the 10 babies are thus the progeny of chaos, the Jesus Christs of manic dissolution. They are the realest things in a country that feels consistently unreal, a South Africa flailing and failing through the third decade of a democracy that has fulfilled almost none of its promise. 

And they were paid for by a government pension fund.

It would be tempting to say that South African reality is bifurcated between those who believe that the Tembisa Ten are a hoax, and those who insist that they are real. But the 21st century is more complicated than that. There are as many realities as there are babies, and this becomes a political catastrophe in a system that depends on some form of consensus to function.

New Dwang 

It shouldn’t be surprising that the bravest and most spectacular work of South African disinformation dropped during Cyril Ramaphosa’s presidency. The Tembisa Ten perfectly articulate his administration: a series of seriocomic pratfalls so outlandish that they have shredded reality, cracked it into shards, revealing nothing beneath us but an abyss.

Indeed, even for those who expected very little from Ramaphosa, his tenure has proved a staggering failure.

Part of the mess can be attributed to circumstances out of his control. (A pandemic. Date My Family. High-waisted jeans.) Most of it, though, has been a self-generated combination of fecklessness, stupidity, indecision, negligence, inattention and magical thinking. The legacy issues he inherited — the corruption, mismanagement and murder that proliferates within the ANC — were problems that he himself assisted in deepening during his four-year deputy presidency.

Although he can’t tie his own shoelaces without forming a committee or a commission of inquiry, Ramaphosa generates chaos wherever he goes. Sadly, he has victimised no one more than himself. Through the vector of the party he governs, he promised renewal, a New Dawn. The result? South Africans are so angry that they’re likely to burn down the National Assembly. Except that won’t be necessary. In January 2022, a homeless man entered the chamber, unhindered by security, and torched it. Whether a political act or an expression of insanity, the destruction of the seat of democracy by a lone arsonist is eerily symbolic of the country’s decline.

Nothing is sacred, everything is propane.

Within the ANC, little has changed except the number of factions vying for dwindling scraps, most of which have atomised in ways that are both dangerous and impossible to track. Under Zuma, there was one Don. Under Ramaphosa, there are dozens. Sadly, he isn’t one of them. The poor man just wants to retire to his farm and feed his high-end pets, but his handlers won’t let him. If they do, then the ANC stands less than no chance in the 2024 election cycle — despite his manic unpopularity within his own party, he’s the only politician in the ruling party palatable to mainstream South African voters.

He does not have much to work with. All of the poisoned seeds sown during the nine lost years have borne their misshapen fruit. Eskom has been destroyed, and it cannot be fixed. Not a single state-owned enterprise runs with any efficiency. Johannesburg’s kept getting mayors that look like they’ve nearly graduated from kindergarten, but not quite yet. Now Kenny Freaking Kunene is running the show. Hospitals are war zones. Ports are drugs- and weapons-trading emporia. Unemployment is the highest of any mid-tier economy, ever, in history. Assassination is so common it barely makes the news unless the victim is a celebrity, or the method of elimination is spectacular enough to cut through the clutter.

If this is reality, then do we actually need disinformation?

And yet there is a clue for what comes next embedded in the Tembisa Ten story. Piet Rampedi, one of the greatest liars in this country’s democratic history, calls himself “Mr Putin” on Twitter. And Piet’s Weltanschauung is shared among South Africa’s ruling elite: he has a deep, psychosexual affinity for the white supremacist midget boss of the Federated Republic of Russia.

And it’s probably going to ruin what’s left of South Africa.

Three times a Lady

Amazingly, South Africa has bumbled into a geopolitical crisis that has catastrophic consequences for the country’s future — a genuine accomplishment considering the fact that the country has no enemies, no contested borders, and no external threats. As most of us are aware, there is a war raging in Europe, which naturally followed the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of last year. Last December, a Russian-flagged ship called the Lady R docked at the Simon’s Town Naval Base. Under the cover of darkness, something was loaded off it — likely a standard order for ammunition — and something else was loaded on to it. Teddy bears? Rooibos? The Tembisa Ten? No one knows.

Or, rather, someone knows, but no one knows less than the actual government.

Late last week, US Ambassador Reuben Brigety told a roomful of journalists that he would “bet his life” that the Lady R left South African waters stuffed with war materiel. His implication was that the shipment violates South Africa’s status as a “non-aligned” nation regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Brigety did not present any proof; he did not share any intelligence. He represents a country that has, for the past 70 years at least, repeatedly lied about exactly these sorts of matters, while pursuing a side gig of regime change on four continents. (Five if you count the US Supreme Court ruling for George W Bush over Al Gore in the contested 2000 election.) Brigety’s life, frankly, isn’t worth much around these parts, given the performative anti-Americanisms that issue forth from the ruling class. No one in the Russia-mad ANC trusts him.

Indeed, in the Russia/Ukraine conflict, South Africa has chosen sides, electing to support its old friends in Moscow — which was famously supportive of the ANC during [checks notes] the Brezhnev era — over newer friends in the godforsaken Nato alliance. The ANC’s friendship is, of course, conditional. The conditions are: you get a hug if you donate. And you get a lot more if you throw in a few cars and a Dubai shopping vacation. 

Naledi Pandor, the face of South Africa’s foreign policy (such as there is one), is fulfilling the role of stalwart Putin cheerleader, and a resolute defender of South Africa’s relationship with our 52nd-largest export market. Will Vladimir Putin be arrested here if he dares to travel for the August BRICS Summit, as per our commitments to the International Criminal Court?

According to Pandor, he will not.

Instead, she has insisted that in order for the ICC to retain any credibility, the institution must prosecute war crimes against “apartheid Israel”. This is a bit of a strange one: the ANC has long professed kinship with the Palestinian people, but over the past 29 years of actually running the country, successive leaders have done nothing to ease their plight. If anything, you could describe South Africa’s deeds — distinct from its rhetoric — as one hundred percent Zionist. 

Indeed, with enemies like the ANC, Israel hardly needs friends.

All of that being said, South Africa is not obligated to slavishly follow the West in its foreign policy decisions. The country owes nothing to the US. It owes nothing to Europe. But this isn’t about friendship and who did what in the 1960s. It’s what’s best for a country — this country — that desperately needs as many friends as it can get, in no small part to help us transition out of the energy poverty that is literally destroying the place. Does this mean endorsing every American fantasy that flits through Washington DC? No. But it does at the very least mean staying non-aligned in a way that doesn’t invalidate the trade agreements and relationships that keep this place afloat.

But the ANC — the comrades don’t live in the real world any more. You have to understand it from their point of view. When there is no such thing as accountability, there’s no such thing as crime. And when there’s no such thing as crime, absolutely anything is possible.

And reality begins to bend to your will.

Eleven babies

And so an eleventh baby is born.

It resembles a mewling, botoxed Baby Putin. Like most babies, this one is a tyrant. Like most babies, he fundamentally changes the nature of the home. And like most babies, it is a narcissist — lying and manipulating its way to get what it wants, which is its lips firmly on the teat, drinking in billions and billions of dollars from anyone dumb enough to get near it. 

It is this baby that South Africa now rears, as the country finally, but definitively, drifts from its roots as a liberal constitutional democracy — a system its founders, very much including Cyril Ramaphosa, intended. The new path is an autocratic model that disdains the rule of law, and demands a breach with reality so that chaos becomes the baseline under which we all labour. As Bernard Malamud put it, “In a sick country, every step to health is an insult to those who live on its sickness.”

It will cost everything to rear this, final, baby who shares none of this country’s founding values and aspirations.

Postmodern disinformation has many roles, but its primary one — outside of poetry — is to function as a scorched earth political weapon: to fragment democracies so that dissolution favours zero-sum autocracy. As the ANC approaches complete failure, the eleventh baby represents its last chance at forging a reality that it can live with.

But perhaps it’s time for South Africans to throw the babies out with the bathwater, and to understand that 2024 will be the final chance for the country to forge a shared reality — to tame the chaos that has left us changing the diapers of monsters who will eat our faces as we sleep. DM

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  • Christopher Bedford says:

    Umm, June 2021. I know, anyone can make a typo, but where’s the proof-reading?

    • Alet Law says:

      Thanks for pointing it out, Christopher. It’s been fixed.

      • Ukraak17 says:

        A hard and depressing read. Our new dawn was a hoax as the clock was wrong – it was the sunset on the SA economy (the little that was left after Zupta been through it).

        I’m an old SAFFER, my pension is tied into the PIC, and I can see visions of when I visited Bulawayo in 1996. We hoped that would never come, but having worked for the Premier’s Office in the NW, and seeing how a province can be destroyed from within, this reality should not be surprising. Water is gone, electricity is gone, infrastructure is gone. Economy is gone. It now survives on handouts from National Govt. In 2021 the Premier’s Office had a budget of R760m – it’s only function was to oversee that the Province performs. And guess what – that Office was under Administration Section 100b.

        Unfortunately the ballot box depends on education AND who shouts the loudest. The ruling elite was put in place by their lying and conniving, and continues to shout that they are the best.

        • John Strydom says:

          It would be very interesting to hear the details from an insider of how you saw the administration of NW go to pot. How did it begin, and how did it escalate – or, rather, fall apart – from there?

          • Anne Swart says:

            I agree with John. Would be interesting to follow the decline. So very sad that there are no checks and balances in place.

    • Nina Nortje says:

      There are a few more slips – proof reading would be good.

  • jimpowell says:

    2024 last chance but can we wait that long?

  • byronhughlatham says:

    This article does a really good job of summing up our current situation. My favorite part, however, is the “But” in the final paragraph. I’m a young South African. I don’t want this country falling apart. Richard is right, the baby must go. Get everyone you know registered, all you need is your phone and your ID. Let’s chuck out the cANCer and unleash this beautiful country’s potential.

  • Dennis Bailey says:

    Wow! Brilliant! Here’s hoping …

  • Mary-Ann van Heerden says:

    What a brilliantly penned article. Hats off to Richard Poplak.

    • Fanie Rajesh Ngabiso says:

      Agree entirely – beautifully written. And deeply disturbing.

      And as to 2024, I agree it is defining and my thoughts have coalesced down to the following necessities:

      1. A single strong opposition party with tangible values.
      2. Acceptance that perfection does not exist and embrace of the goal of “better” – rinse, repeat.

      And in acknowledging these that there can really be only 1 voting choice: the DA.

  • Donald bemax says:

    A magnificent synopsis of a totally defunct ANC.A bunch of rotting fruit attracting all the flies..
    The rest of of us are expected to pinch our nose and side step the mess.

  • Concerned Citizen says:

    Great article. Nelson Mandela had a clear vision for South Africa, focused on moving forward with growth and prosperity as one Nation and worked tirelessly while he was President to achieve it. But the ANC turned its back on that vision and adopted a victim mentality, focused on the past and dividing up the spoils. Its rallying cry has become “its our turn to eat” and it has devoured everything in sight. If a foreign enemy attacked us and destroyed our energy infrastructure, our roads, our railways, our airline, our postal service, our armed forces, our water and sanitation infrastructure, our public buildings, our hospitals and our schools and caused thousands of unnecessary deaths and untold suffering through its actions, we would be up in arms. Yet, the ANC has done this with impunity and are now behaving like a vast criminal enterprise, with Cyril Ramaphosa as the Capo dei capi. The ANC continues with selfish personal enrichment of its elites and cadres at an unbearable cost to the country – if this doesn’t count as treason then I don’t know what does. And ANC cadres are prepared to kill each other for a seat at the table and their “turn to eat”. Someone with a victim mentality blames others for their failures, refuses to take accountability, justifies their deeds with a sense of entitlement and won’t ever stop taking, regardless of how much they have already taken because they are “forever victims” and can never be satisfied. One can’t have a vision and build something with a victim mindset because you are forever stuck in the past, facing the wrong way and the ANC will never be able to take this country forward because they can’t fix their mindset. No practical advice on what needs to be done to fix South Africa will have any chance of success until we have a government that is focused on the future and unlocking the vast potential that our country has for everyone who lives here. You can judge someone by the company they keep, and the ANC (and EFF) have endless admiration and fealty for the likes of Venezuela, Cuba, Russia and Zimbabwe, all stuck in victim mindsets with broken ideologies. No vision, no future.

  • Geoff Woodruff says:

    Thank you for a most disturbing yet compelling article. 2024 is likely to be our last chance to live in a relatively recognizable South Africa but I fear that the ignorance of the uneducated masses will be a stumbling block. Offering the electorate a glimmer of hope along with a big fat lie will most likely keep the ANC in power albeit with an even more dangerous ally in the EFF. I fear for the future of South Africa.

    • Sue Hutchings says:

      I agree 100 % with your comment.
      I fear that South Africa is beyond saving.

      • Jane Crankshaw says:

        I too sadly agree that we have finally tipped over the edge of reason. A terrible admission from one with SA links since 1667, a Saffer passport and 5 children and their families living in South Africa – talk about living on the edge!

    • D'Esprit Dan says:

      Why is always an assumption that those voting for the ANC are ignorant and uneducated? The ANC has built an entire cadre network whose existence – and the flashy lifestyles of themselves, their families and friends – depends entirely on keeping the status quo for as long as their is still some gravy on the carcass. An entire, bloated bureaucracy of around 2 million people, plus their ‘business interests’.

      Then you have those, older and I suppose more rural, South Africans who were so badly screwed over by apartheid that they will never trust John Steenhuisen or another white politician. Bheki Cele inadvertently hit the nail on the head a couple of months ago, when he said people in rural KZN don’t complain about loadshedding, because under apartheid they had no electricity. It’s exactly that, that the ANC relies on: give people who had nothing the bare minimum and they’re grateful, and easily manipulated by playing into their base fears. And this isn’t just a South African or African thing: look at how Donald Trump keeps his base of around 30% of the US electorate despite everything he says or does. A poll in the Washington Post last December shows 78% of Republicans had strongly or somewhat positive about Trump. The Tories in the UK, despite being corrupt and implementing policies that are slowly destroying that country, continue to be in government (although maybe for not much longer) on the back of strong support from the middle class (hardly ignorant and uneducated).

  • Richard Poplak, you are a marvellous writer! I loved this article and for the first time, someone has said it how it is! Instead of always saying ‘the govt needs to do this..’ the govt ain’t going to do anything!! Good that is…

  • Valencia Kaiser says:

    Brilliant piece!

    • Hulme Scholes says:

      I almost want to do something terrible so I can read how RP writes about it – the man is brilliant. I just wish that what he was writing about was fantasy and not the awful reality we are facing.

  • Alan Wassung says:

    An excellent article. It sums up the whole current SA scenario perfectly.
    However disturbing and politically gut wrenching this narrative is, the truth is, there is nothing that cannot be fixed by us all by voting these evil, mentally retarded, criminals out in 2024. The only real concern I have is that the opposition party / parties need to desperately formulate a viable, plausible, policy that will convince the populace that there is a way out of this pit we are in and that way out will include all South Africans!! I am not sure that policy exists right now?

    • Bruce Q says:

      I agree Alan.
      I seriously doubt that Richard’s clever writing will ever reach the masses, nor will it be understood even if it did.
      The oposition parties need to mobilize a joint effort to access these masses and show them the truth.
      (Give them T-shirts and food hampers if necessary.)
      The mass voting public must be shown how their precious ANC have destroyed their children’s future.
      The ANC must go!

      • Lisbeth Scalabrini says:

        In Turkey, six opposition parties have merged for the general election yesterday. They certainly don’t agree on everything, but they have one thing in common, they want to get rid of the present number ONE. Why can’t they do the same in SA?

  • Mark Borchers Borchers says:

    Entertaining, but shouldn’t be a leading article – should be an Opinion Piece rather. Detracts from DM’s reputation as a not-too-biased, unemotive source of news and information.

  • Rae Earl says:

    A depressingly accurate summing up of South Africa standing on the edge of the abyss. Reading this overview brings on the same sense of despair and hopelessness one gets when reading Orwell’s 1984 or his Animal Farm, or both. The only possible positive from the SA Disaster now unfolding, would be to somehow get both the rural and urban millions who have voted for the ANC with almost religious fervor over the past 6 elections, to read (or at least be told), about the contents of this article. Richard Poplak is not exaggerating. This is where we, as a nation, are at right now. If the ANC or a coalition ANC/EFF wins in 2024, we will discover what lies at the bottom of the abyss.

  • Carsten Rasch says:

    And, please, lets chuck the tub that contained the babies and the bathwater too.

  • Hermann Funk says:

    Thanks Richard, and if you now can convince Ramaphosa to step down so that the various ANC factions of crooks kill each other you’ll receive the highest order this country bestows on its heroes.

  • Confucious Says says:

    The anc’s continued failure to implement its obligations to the ICC stem from the same stupidity as that idiot from SAA who, as a registered accountant, “didn’t know that signing a contract was binding”!

    Summed up: self-generated combination of fecklessness, stupidity, indecision, negligence, inattention and magical thinking!

  • Paul Yule says:

    “ When there is no such thing as accountability, there’s no such thing as crime. And when there’s no such thing as crime, absolutely anything is possible.”

  • Peter Tuffin says:

    The Schroedinger’s cat of journalism. I love to read Richard’s writing, but I hate the content.

  • Karen G says:

    Excellent but terrifying article. Love Richard’s writing style – wish he would write more often.

  • Colin Attwell says:

    Reading the responses reveals there are some who still cling to that thinnest of hopes that through all this we still have working democracy to save us from this abyss. I fear that even if the ANC garnered not a single honest vote in 2024, that they would be returned in a landslide victory. Then what?

  • Change is good sa says:

    Great article, love Richard’s style of writing.
    To get SA back on track, let’s look at the top 7 in the ANC government. Ramaphosa, Maropene Ramokgopa, Mokonyane, Mashatile, Mantashe, Gwen Ramokgopa, Mbalula. These 7 people could stop the corruption at Eskom and all other SOE’s and government departments tomorrow if they so chose. They have full knowledge and they are in charge. I suggest that various citizens of SA that have suffered losses due to corruption, should take these 7 monsters to court in a civil case. The charge sheet would be long, but it could be done, as is the ‘Guns of Crime’ case being tested in the courts now. I am sure that South African citizens from around the country would fund and support this case should it be taken up by an organisation.
    It seems the courts are the only way to go these days. Although not perfect, we could initiate this before the 2024 elections, which are a long cold, dark and expensive year away.
    We do not need to be victims to these 7 monsters. We need to diminish them one by one, as they have diminished everything in South Africa. Decent ANC MP’s, opposition parties, Business, media and concerned SA citizens. We need to push back and be winners.

  • D'Esprit Dan says:

    Superbly written and scarily true. The problem we have is that Naledi Pandor is just a well-spoken village idiot plonked into the Ministry to waffle on endlessly whilst the real architects of our foreign policy sit in the shadows. Read the drivel Alvin Botes writes, with its roots in the 1960s Non-Aligned Movement and the Bandung Declaration (1955!) as the basis for our foreign policy. Botes became deputy-minister at DIRCO in 2019, round about the same time that our foreign policy fell completely off the wagon in terms of navigating a course for a struggling mid-sized economy in choppy international waters versus trying to push for a new world order with some of the world’s worst polecats at the heart of it. That the ANC is suddenly able to smoothly pay salaries every month, as we move ever closer to Putin, should surprise no-one either.

  • Brian Cotter says:

    “But perhaps it’s time for South Africans to throw the babies out with the bathwater, and to understand that 2024 will be the final chance for the country to forge a shared reality ”
    But Cyril is running a new shared bath now, the perfumed water and bubble bath supplied by China, like the rest of the African Continent. Pravin is there now, sorting out sweet deals so we can get spares for our corrupt locomotive deals. Also in tow with him are Eskom people, but not Jan Oberholtzer unfortunately. Maybe he is looking at China running our Power Stations ANC has an election to win and back up plan needed if they don’t get elected. Peking though is not a substitute for Dubai.

  • Hilary Morris says:

    Probably the most depressingly brilliant article in a long time. I could wish I hadn’t read it. Just to add to the doom and gloom, I cannot see how the relatively uneducated and rural masses could conceive a future without the ANC. Which, of course, is the only possible way out of this bloody awful mess. If the abyss is inevitable, let’s hope there is a toehold to climb out. Failing and falling we are.

  • Lynne Rivett-Carnac says:

    This article articulates exactly the rage which all SA citizens should feel at the determined effort of our current Government to ruin the economy, the country and the hopes we all had of a better future. The last time I felt this ashamed to be a South African was under the Aprtheid government.

  • kwagga.marx says:

    Only Richard Poplak can turn such a desperate situation into a poetic masterpiece. I absolutely love your turn of phrase mate. Despite horror of the content, it does generate a perverse enjoyment for how eloquently you take the piss with these losers. Please write more often, it must really hurt those of them who can read. If reality can be bent at will, then all those ANC criminals can probably read right.

  • William Dryden says:

    Really sad what the ANC have done to this country, I hope I live long enough to see them pay for what they have done.

  • Epsilon Indi says:

    Given the author’s statements regarding Israel and the USA, perhaps he should ask himself, what society would he prefer to be in, Israeli society, US society or South African society. I know I’d rather be in almost any society other than SA society. SA society is replete with corrupt scum, thieves, embezzlers, murderers, intimidators, liars, arsonists, complete incompetents and individuals who lack any Judeo-Christian ethics. I rue the day my great-grandparents came to this country, they left us, their heirs, to deal with the disgusting immorality that now holds sway in SA.

  • Beyond Fedup says:

    Great article and the one by Concerned Citizen as well!! Truly sums up the dire situation in SA and what these treasonous thieves have done to this country.

  • Ginny Swart says:

    Brilliant writing, and Richard Poplak sums up our situation perfectly. All I can do about it is encourage my grandkids to emigrate as soon as they can.

  • Karl Sittlinger says:

    So the question now is, can all those that hate the DA for minor or personal reasons (especially due to individuals like Zille or Steenhuisen) finally get over themselves and vote DA, to save the country? Are we going to worry about a bad insensitive joke (roadkill comment) or our collapsing country? Because when it comes to complaining about the DA, none of it seems even slightly as urgent as the issues we are facing with the ANC. And instead of belittling the moonshot pact and attempts to stem the madness, maybe a bit of support would help?

    • Kelly Holland says:

      Spot on, Karl!

    • Paddy Ross says:

      Well said – the only action suggested comment among a sea of pessimism.

    • John Smythe says:

      Dead right! It’s the usual pernickety inconsequentials who don’t add value. They pick on the small things that can be fixed. The DA has shown over and over that things get fixed and fast. So, picking on silly things (like “Moonshot”) isn’t going to help SA out of the long-drop the ANC has put it in. And its time that big business comes to the party to save SA instead of sitting in their fancy boardrooms discussing mitigating strategies. As for that person who thinks McKenzie will be a good president….. well, I don’t think I’ve ever been more disappointed in a man of such influence.

  • Jane Crankshaw says:

    Voting will change nothing – the numbers of uneducated voters is just too vast.
    Even a Class Action by taxpayers for Treason against the ruling ANC would not work because of our compromised Judiciary…..
    We are well and truly f….ed folkes! The sooner we accept this and make our choices ( the few we have) the better!

    • Paddy Ross says:

      I think that you might be surprised how many of the “uneducated voters” are also fed up with the ANC’s inability to govern South Africa.

    • Bee Man says:

      Fully with you on that Jane. Sadly the numbers are insurmountable I’m afraid. Those that have braved the weather and stayed the distance without leaving for greener pastures have always tried to look forward and blindly believe that theres a turning point just ahead. But alas, like the rainbow that has never delivered the promised pot of gold, nor have our hopes and dreams… and here they never will.

  • Gerhard Vermaak says:

    The last paragraph in your piece probably puts everything in perspective, if the anc win next year we are heading down the creak without a paddle fast on the way to destruction, let’s hope the voters of this country aren’t convinced by a t-shirt and a 2 piece meal to vote for the anc and ignore all the sycophants peddling anc propaganda, we can only dream.

  • mddraper1507 says:

    All very true but so so SAD. Brilliant article.

  • Jairo Arrow says:

    RP, wena. You will end up one day in Pretoria Central for doubting government statistics on the progress made towards a New Doom (Dawn).

  • David Muller says:

    Thanks Mr R Poplak, I’ve always maintained that if some thing can be read allowed with meaning on its first reading and it makes sense, then it is well written. I read this to my partner who sat and listened right to the end. She
    Enjoyed every word, even those I struggled to pronounce correctly
    Well done.

  • Georg Scharf Scharf says:

    Genius article. However unruly sad, filling my soul with fear. It is clear we are in a “mayday – mayday-mayday” mode becoming a failed state. Sudan, Somalia, Zimbabwe and several more pariah states. At least the governments of the world respected all of us, but now? This ANC must be defeated, but the reality is that a larger portion of this rainbow nation will still vote for the ANC or EFF, hoping to be invited to attain kickbacks from what is left to plunder. They have no insights to reality.

  • Jimbo Smith says:

    Brilliantly written. I just wonder how many ANC sympathizers read articles of this nature. They must feel some form of shame or are these people beyond any form of conscience for the destruction they have and continue to inflict on this country??

  • Chris Powell Powell says:

    Ah Richard, where have you been?? An excellent, vividly written, thought provoking and clinically accurate analysis of our sick country. The most profund line – “Nothing is sacred, everything is propane”. Thank you!

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