Bad Bad Badu

If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s politicians. If there’s an even worse thing it’s dictatorial politicians.

If there’s a third thing that gets my bile rising, it’s idiots who actually abide despotic politicians.

And so we come to Erykah Badu, the American singer who sang recently for Swaziland’s tyrannical ruler King Mswati III, on his 46th birthday. She even gave the despicable “royal” fucker some presents.

King Tits & Tum at a Reed Dance

I don’t really need to elaborate on why King Mswati III is such a douche-bag. He’s just that; an imperial bag of shit. I’m more irritated about why Badu would sing for His Royal Kleptocrat-ness. It’s not like she desperately needs the money.

Up until I heard about this incident, I quite liked Badu’s singing; well one or two songs at least. I don’t know if I could bring myself to listen to On & On ever again. It would make me think on and on about Mswati lording it over the poor sods unfortunate enough to make up his kingdom, and the15-and-counting wives.

To redeem herself, Erykah would have to take back her presents for starters, and write a song about the true nature of the African despot known as Mswati. Better still, writing a disparaging song about all of Africa’s many dictators would win me back for sure.

Dog Help Zimbabwe!

Zimbabwe elections

The most recent elections are a thing of the past. And like the past, they certainly look neither free nor fair.

The tyrant Robert Mugabe looks set to serve another term in office, and judging by his own boasts he will continue to rule until death mercifully removes his revolting presence from the face of this beautiful, but ravaged land.

Since that bumbling fool Morgan Tsvangirai who stood against Mugabe on two previous occasions is most certainly too weak and ineffectual to do something about it, Zimbabwe looks to have two options for redemption:

1. Dogs of war liberating them in what could be a bloody struggle
2. Or that dog himself, Mugabe having a miraculous change of heart and returning to civilized democratic governorship.

Even if the second option looks forlorn, it’s about the best we can hope for.

South Africa could do with a woman like this for President

Malawi is practically a neighbouring country, but I had no idea that the new President, Joyce Banda was making such radical changes there. It’s embarrassing; not the changes being made, but my ignorance.

In my defense, I was not expecting anything different from Banda, after Bingu wa Mutharika, Malawi’s former President ensured the Continent’s trend of setting up despots, thieves and madmen in power, until his timely death. Women are as susceptible as men to be corrupt, despotic, thieving and mad.

JOYCE BANDA (Photo credit: Back2Black Festival)

But not this woman it seems. No, Joyce Banda has within months of becoming the new President, made radical changes such as:

1. Getting rid of the Presidential jet which the poor country can ill afford
2. Ditching the cavalcade of expensive limousines that Mutharika used to ride around in like a pompous ass
3. Announced the repeal of laws banning homosexuality, imposed by the bigoted Mutharika
4. Sacked the corrupt police chief favoured by her equally corrupt predecessor
5. Appointed a new cabinet (hopefully one that the country can be proud of)
6. Re-stablished developmental and diplomatic relations with Britain
7. Working with the Bank of En value of Malawi’s currency
8. Refusing to allow Sudanese despot Omar al-Bashir into the country for an AU Summit in July

Joyce Banda provides hope that Africa may yet change radically, and rid itself of the penchant for self-destruction through the selection of dictators and madmen like Mugabe. And the fact that it took a woman to start this change is even more cause for celebration.

One can only hope that South Africa follows suite and ejects these greedy, corrupt, inept, power-hungry lunatics in the ANC from power. One would be even more hopeful that a woman or women accomplish that rescuing act.

Elections in Africa are free and fair

Photo credit: Wikipedia

I know what you’re thinking. You’re from one of the first world countries.

But it isn’t this: elections on the African continent are free and fair. Free for the politicians who stand for elections because both donors and the taxman is paying for it. Fair to the person or party that wins.

That’s right. And the politicians don’t have to work too hard to manipulate a win either. The people – the majority – are surprisingly pliable. You, from the first world can speculate why. It’s not that hard to figure out.

The winners join an elite body of rulers on the African continent,  the Organization of African Unity, otherwise known as the LAD’s – League of African Despots. You, from the first world will catch them on television every once in a while. They will be in a meeting of sorts, talking about shit that will never happen…. and drinking wine, expensive wine paid for by the voters of the country unfortunate enough to host them.

From Abdoulaye Wade to Mugabe, Mswati, Mbasago, Mosisili, Meles Zenawi, Mohammed VI, Mbeki (deposed), Muammar Gaddafi (dead), Malema (not yet… ruling that is), and all the way to Zuma. I’ll leave you to fill in the blanks. All given power by the people…

What were you thinking? You’re from Africa.

Today in Politics: Roasting #03

Tyranny is typically a male-dominated pass-time. So one wonders why South Africa’s Home Affairs Minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma wants to get mixed up in it.

Having just failed in her bid to be elected chair[women] of the African Union Commission, Dlamini-Zuma intends standing for election again in six months. Perhaps this will give her more time to hone those despotism skills so valued in the African Union.

Now how about this attempt by a South African diplomatic official to rationalize Dlamini-Zuma’s failure to secure the majority vote against her opponent, Jean Ping of Gabon?

It was a vote of no-confidence in his [Ping] leadership. African countries were clearly unhappy with an AU that was ran from Paris. This provides us an opportunity to elect someone from a country which does not have neo-colonial hang-ups.

So how is the failure of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to secure a two-thirds majority, also not a vote of no-confidence?

…………………………………………………………..

Meanwhile back home the bitter feuding within the ANC escalates on an almost daily basis.

The Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry Thandi Tobias-Poloko publicly rebuked Public Enterprise Minister Malusi Gigaba for allegedly “undermining unity within the ANC by publicly discussing internal issues.”

Listen up dumb-asses, you are all public officials and the public have a right to know what the fuck is going on in government. We have earned this right by paying the taxes that keep you dirt-bags ensconced in the lap of luxury, while a large part of the population still don’t have running water and housing after 17 years of ANC incompetence and thievery.

In case you think we don’t know about the so-called “UNITY” in your party; we fucking do. We know that it’s all about jockeying for positions at the feeding trough.

So stop fucking thinking that your dirty laundry is still a big secret.

God hates Zimbabwe… and must be a trifle miffed at South Africa too

If the maniac who is currently ruling Zimbabwe is right about God’s intentions for him, and if this deity does indeed exist, then he, she or it must surely hate that country and its people.

The loathsome human in question, one Robert Gabriel Mugabe has been in power for

Image via Wikipedia

more than 30 years, and is steadily transforming it into one humongous Zimbabwe Ruin. And he believes that God has chosen him to protect Zimbabwe from the “marauding imperialists.”

I am lucky God has given me this longer life than others to be with you. I cannot let you down. I cannot leave you on your own.

Now if you happen to be a marauding imperialist, know that God hates you too. Either that, or you’re just a figment of the imagination like this deity that Mugabe holds so dear.

While ordinary Zimbabweans show up as apathetic at best, their only hope at opposition to Monster Mugabe appears to be a bumbling, whiner who seems to be as interested in power for the sake of it, as the incumbent. Morgan Tsvangirai, far from being a threat, actually makes Insane Bob look like a desirable leader.

But the hating does not stop there. Some of God’s ire seems to be focussed on neighbouring South Africa which has been encumbered with a bunch of thieves to run the country, while outwardly masquerading as a liberation movement. And surprise, surprise, these louts who have already turned South Africa into their personal fiefdom, have publicly given their support [for his re-election to President] to Mad Bob Mugabe, so that he can rape Zimbabwe for another five years.

With benevolence like this, who needs the Devil?

Apartheid Resurrected

Apartheid is dead! Long live apartheid!

 

 

Sounds corny, right? But if you’re living in South Africa in these turbulent times, that

prospect is very real, very terrifying. Who could have imagined apartheid being resurrected by the very people who took it down less than twenty years ago.

It took less than two decades for the liberators to figure out that apartheid was perhaps not so bad after all. It could in fact be quite useful if:

1. Almost every member of your political organization has his or her hands in the nation’s cooky jar and you needed to make sure when caught, that they’re free from prosecution
2. Those same members have a pathological tendency to be arrogant, and habitually, if hysterically, shoot themselves in the foot when caught out
3. You need to silence the press who have this rather annoying habit of exposing the rampant corruption, laziness, incompetence, arrogance, nepotism, and sheer stupidity of the members of your political organization on a daily, even hourly basis
4. You need to satiate your unbelievable greed and love of bling, by either raiding the treasury or setting up elaborate kick-back schemes that are designed to enrich friends, family, sycophants and possible back-stabbers
5. You have a repressed hatred of White people who you still blame for the original apartheid
6. You want to rule until Jesus returns

That’s half a dozen reasons I can think of, off the top of my head.

But here’s the events that are unfolding right now in South Africa which lends credence to the need to revive apartheid:

1. The Protection of Information Bill [POIB] introduced by this organization is to be put to the vote before Parliament tomorrow, 21 November. Its passing in the National Assembly is assured because this organization makes up the majority in government. This Bill seeks to muzzle the press and the citizens of this country by ensuring that government’s sordid activities can be blanketed in a shroud of secrecy. This Bill seeks to kill free speech.
2. The Presidential spokesperson has just laid criminal charges against a major newspaper and two of its reporters for having the temerity to expose some of his dodgy dealings in the arms scandal that occurred some years ago. If anything raises alarm bells about POIB, this one act will make your ears ring.
3. The so-called youth wing [ANCYL] of this organization, a morose bunch of unemployable, arrogant, disrespectful misfits, seem hell-bent on turning the country into an economic dung-heap by demanding that businesses that keep the economy going, be nationalised and handed over to them to be sucked dry and land be expropriated Zimbabwe style to realise the revolutionary’s dream of being a landowner. These same morons idolize the fallen dictator Gaddafi, very publicly.
4. Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer, a stalwart of the anti-apartheid movement speaks out strongly against the direction being adopted by this organization: “The corrupt practices and nepotism that they [politicians] allow themselves is exposed if we have freedom of expression. When we all voted together, which was a great moment in my life, [we thought] everything would be alright. That was a childish idea.”
5. Meanwhile, the President of this organization and the country, has very little to say about these matters, but seems to be pre-occupied building an extravagant Hitler-style bunker on his estate.

Yes folks, apartheid is once again all the rage in South Africa.

Let’s hope not…

Could it be possible that Muammar Gaddafi is on his way South looking for asylum in South Africa, and Julius Malema is heading North escaping prosecution for grand theft?

I most certainly don’t want that deranged tyrant living in the same country as me, nor do I want that fascist thief escaping the punishment that’s his due…

© 2011 Zapiro (All rights reserved)

Printed with permission from www.zapiro.com

For more Zapiro cartoons visit www.zapiro.com

 

Death of a politician…

A politician died today.

Saw it on a Facebook status update. Jack Layton of Toronto, Canada, leader of the opposition New Democratic Party.

I off course didn’t know all this when I saw the status which just read “Rest in peace Jack Layton. You will be missed.” For a South African such as myself, accustomed to an entire lifetime of sleazy, self-serving, arrogant, thieving scumbags who pass for politicians, the thought that a politician could actually be missed, is both alien and repulsive.

It’s no wonder then that I commented “It’s a politician….good riddance I say…”

That’s when the status owner, my cousin replied that he was “…a man for the people.”

A man for the people? Yet again, it’s a concept that’s hard to accede to. Do such men (politicians) really exist? Well, if my cousin from Canada is to be believed or trusted, maybe. Either Jack has done some astounding work convincing Canadians, some at least, that he’s a good guy, or Jack is (was) really a good guy.

Unfortunately though, my South African – no my Continental – experience which feeds my cynicism, will not allow me to slip my guard, and allow one of these reprehensible cretins who create misery and suffering all over Africa, to get a foot in the door of my favour.

Goodbye Jack, perhaps I’ve been too harsh on you; but I’m hoping fervently that you’ll be welcoming many of Africa’s shitbag politicians to join you as soon as possible, starting with Muammar Gaddafi up North…

Get Gaddafi!!!

Either Gaddafi has learnt a few things about survival from the Iraqi and Afghanistan conquests, or the USA is just pussyfooting around in Libya.

This prolonged campaign of bombing and bungling by the United States is not doing anyone any good. Why don’t they just get the job done and get the hell out of Libya? This prevarication is becoming tiresome, and the longer it goes on, the more lives that are lost unnecessarily.

Even South African President Jacob Zuma has failed miserably to convince the tyrant of Libya to vacate office, and they’re supposed to be bosom buddies. This is his second or third attempt, two of which required a personal visit to Libya. I wonder why? Something’s just not kosher with these trips, but I suppose only time will reveal the truth.

Will you guys please get Gaddafi so that the world can focus on that other tyrant, Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen…while the infighting erupts in Libya.