When overzealous politicians go South

The South African (ANC) government has introduced some neat legislation over the course of twenty years which most people are happy with. Over recent years however, they seem hell-bent on tipping the scales with a plethora of mind-numbingly dumb laws, such as The Protection Of Information Bill.

Recently the idiot politicians (beats the hell out of me why they are referred to as lawmakers) in charge of Home Affairs, dreamt up some silly rules to govern Immigration, among other things. Journalist Peter Delmar of Times Live has written a very witty column about it, and because I could not in my wildest dreams have said it better, I’ve decided instead to steal it whole and post it here. I’m sure he won’t mind.

Impressionable minds at the Department of Home Affairs have been watching too much CNN.

People over there have got it into their heads that the name of the department sounds a lot like the US’s Department of Homeland Security. And so now, all of a sudden, we have a Department of Home Affairs that is obsessed with security.

If you’re a foreigner married to a South African, congratulations: we really are the very nicest people in the world to be married to. Too bad, though, that you will have to go back to wherever it is you came from to prove that you really are you – even if you’ve been living in this country for years, happily producing broods of little half-South Africans.

If you’re, say, a rocket scientist, a bio-molecular astrophysicist, or a newspaper columnist (one of those scarce and valuable skills we need more of if we’re going to grow our economy), you’re going to have to jump through a whole heap of hoops to convince our Department of Home Affairs that they should let you in. And genuine foreign investors can jolly well stick their money and their factories in any other country if Home Affairs doesn’t like the look of them. This because, nowadays, Home Affairs takes security very, very seriously.

(The new-found security obsession of what used to be considered the world’s worst government department does rather bring to mind that phrase that has to do with horses bolting and locking stable doors. Until very recently our borders were beyond porous and South African passports could be bought at any old flea market almost anywhere in the world.)

But not any more, not since tough guy Malusi Gigaba took over at Home Affairs a few months ago. Now we have a department of paper shufflers determined to keep us all safe. About time too (the police gave up long ago on the business of keeping people safe and secure).

But the regulations that Home Affairs’ blunt-instrument law-drafters have come up with are not exactly winning them friends and influencing people.

Most recently it was the airlines that were up in arms over Home Affairs’ brilliant idea that nobody should be allowed to travel to South Africa with a child if that child did not have an unabridged birth certificate.

All over the world millions of very nice people with nice steady jobs they have worked at for 30-odd years have been saving all their lives to come on holiday to South Africa so that they can point their Nokias at our crocodiles, get a suntan and drink cheap beer.

The problem the airlines have with this unabridged birth-certificate story is that Kenya also has cheap beer and lots of sunshine.

And crocodiles. In fact, thanks to that carefully stage-managed annual migration lark, Kenya’s crocodiles are much more famous than our crocodiles. (A big drawcard for nice rich foreign people with steady jobs used to be our rhinos but, well, we’re sort of running out of those .)

Last week the mandarins at Home Affairs agreed, in the most grudging tones, that they would deign to speak to the meddling, protesting airlines, which wanted the unabridged-certificate wheeze postponed for a year.

This is good news. Perhaps Mr and Mrs Airline can explain to the aunties at Home Affairs how things work: “We fly in lots of foreign tourists who spend lots of money in our country having a wonderful time. The money these nice rich people spend creates jobs.

“All of the people looking after them – the hotels, the bus operators, the B&Bs, the restaurants, the shopkeepers the grandchildren buy ‘Hello Kitty Goes to Kruger’ T-shirts from, even the brewers who make the beer – pay things called ‘taxes’.

“And those taxes keep you lot at Home Affairs in your jobs.”

Now I wonder which government department will try to top this act of lunacy. There sure are plenty of them, and they keep growing after every election.

Lout of Africa 2

It didn’t take very long for Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe to jump on the Museveni gay-bashing bandwagon.

It now seems likely that he’ll follow suit by instituting a witchhunt against homosexuality in Zimbabwe that will rival, if not outdo the despicable new legislation enacted by Museveni in Uganda. And how’s this statement for gross irony?

It’s a terrible world we are in, a terrible world where people want to do things that they feel will enhance their own interests.

Oh yes, you baboon’s ass, it is indeed a terrible world we live in; one darkened by bigots and tyrants such as you and Museveni.

Back In Uganda

Meanwhile the Ugandan Anglican Archbishop Stanley Ntagali has threatened the mother church in England with breaking away if they exert any pressure on Uganda to overturn the recent anti-homosexual laws.

This homophobic bible-bashing cretin believes that the Anglican mother church should respect the Ugandan’s views on homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Respect? Bigoted clergymen don’t deserve respect; they deserve nothing but derision.

In fact, I sincerely hope that the Anglican mother church boots these fucktards out.

Lout of Africa

I really didn’t think this waste of a human life would go ahead with it. But he did.

In yet another infamous day on the African continent, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda signed into law a bill that could (and most likely will) imprison for life anyone convicted of (repeat?) homosexuality. The law goes further in requiring that heterosexuals denounce anyone suspected of homosexuality, effectively demanding that ordinary citizens become spies for the government, which brings back horrifying recollections from history of how this was abused in Medieval Europe and during the Salem witch trials. No doubt the keepers of the law will find ways to “deal” with those who refuse to out homosexuals.

I don’t have to defend my position to all good people who are upholders of basic human rights, but neither am I going to attempt to convince those who find this reprehensible act of cowardice and bigotry justifiable. You are simply not good people, no matter how much conviction, solace and comfort you find in your archaic religious texts. If you really must know why this is so reprehensible, read this journalists column here.

This law isn’t just bad and evil on a purely discriminatory level, but is an indictment on Africa, Africans and the state of leadership on this continent. Africa is telling the world that it simply refuses to move forward to a progressive world order, preferring to indulge antiquated customs, traditions and contracted thinking. In short African leaders insist on reminding the world that it will live up to its label of the “Dark Continent.”

While it would be fitting if the US and the EU makes good the threat to impose harsh economic sanctions on Uganda, it would only adversely affect the ordinary citizens of this country, because the fat cats in government such as Museveni and that ghastly excuse for a human, Simon Lokodo with the pompous title of Minister for Integrity and Ethics, will still be able to live it up at the expense of the people.

Meanwhile to add to the ignominy that this day has spawned, almost due South in Zimbabwe, another shameful specimen in the form of Robert Mugabe, used his 90th birthday celebrations to launch into a tirade (as he does annually on his birthday) against homosexuality. Why this arrogant little tyrant cares about such things at his age is truly baffling.

In all of this, the silence from the so-called leaders in my own country (South Africa) is deafening and ominous. Is this a sign of things heading our way too?