TOM EATON: How David Mabuza had to wing it like a grade 7 doing an unprepared Afrikaans book review
The deputy president stood up (thanks to the miracle of Russian medicine) in front of parliament (thanks to the miracle of sheltered employment) and told the country that load-shedding is proof that SA’s economy is growing
Extract
We all did it at school: groping our way through an oral on an Afrikaans novel we hadn’t read. Some of us where quite good, holding up our unopened copy of a morbid rural melodrama called something like Die Lang Verdrietige Dors Van Wimpie Die Wesie, explaining that it was a “baie goeie boek” and “die windpomp is ’n simbool van die liefde” and “die tema van die dood maak dit universeel”.
We did it because the stakes were so low: wing it for five minutes every few months, talking about how the book has a beginning, a middle and an end, and you’ll leave school and start earning money and you’ll never have to read another book ever again. It worked for work-shy 15-year-olds, and this week it worked for a work-shy deputy president. This week, David Mabuza stood up (thanks to the miracle of Russian medicine) in front of parliament (thanks to the miracle of sheltered employment) and told the country that load-shedding is proof that SA’s economy is growing. Right-wing Twitter threw its copy of 12 Rules For Life across the room and declared that Mabuza was “stupid”. Sure. That’s why he gets paid R275,000 a month for smiling and waving while they’re banging out think-pieces on their blogs for free. Of course, Mabuza wasn’t being stupid. He was just lying. We have regular blackouts because the ANC and its accomplices have neglected half of Eskom and looted the rest. That lie,...
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