NEELS BLOM: Put this in your pipe and smoke it, minister
Let’s consider what possibly could motivate Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi in his bid to ban smoking from public areas
The only redeeming part the member of the Upper Jukskei Flyfishing Collective remembers of his high school career was smoking cigarettes in the coal shed during break, lighting up in cupped hand, savouring the aroma of sulphur and defiance. The boys at school were caught, often, and beaten — each time by homoerotic sadistic masters. Catching them smoking had nothing to do with their health but everything with their tormentors’ lusts. In the same way, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi’s bid to ban smoking from public areas, designated or otherwise, has nothing to do with public health but everything to do with slaking the venal urges of those in power. Smoking was not the only banned activity in the member’s youth. You were not, for instance, permitted to own or read a copy of Playboy or of André Brink’s Kennis van die Aand, yet at least the boys in the smoking club either owned or rented a copy of Playboy and had read a samizdat of Kennis. Brink’s victory, which was analogous to his ...
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