Sniffing Tony Leon's panties

2005-12-07 09:26

Some days, as a columnist, you wake up and the morning stretches ahead of you, gaping, empty, without a story idea in sight.

Other days, though, other glorious days, you wake up and you're confronted by Tony Leon's panties.

Who is Tony Leon, you might ask. He's the head of the Democratic Allsorts (DA), South Africa's main opposition party, although frankly that's not saying much.

If truth be told (which it seldom is in the world of politics), the ANC is its own opposition party.

All the tangled webs that the Divine Chihuahua (Tony Leon's nickname, apparently) and his minions can weave are as nothing to the incredible cock-ups that the Alleged National Congress (so called because of the number of Allegeds they have as ministers: alleged rapists, alleged fraudsters, and alleged garlic lovers) appears able to foist upon itself.

A vote against Zuma

The DA have the perfect electoral campaign in the making here. "Don't think of a vote for the DA as a vote for Tony Leon - think of it as a vote against Jacob Zuma."

Or against Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. Or against *insert name here*. It's not as if the ANC have a shortage of idiots on their books.

Alas, the Democratic Allsorts, being a much smaller party, can only afford a small selection of idiots. However, what they lack in quantity they make up for in quality.

The prize idiot must be the person who decided that a good way to promote the campaign against woman and child abuse would be to hang up 22 483 pairs of panties in Bishop Lavis in Cape Town.

Needless to say - but I'm going to say it anyway, because I've got some column inches to fill - the panties were stolen before you could say jou ma se lingerie.

I mean, hanging your panties up in Bishop Lavis, that's just asking for it. Maybe they thought it was Bishop's Court? Tsk. They should have bought themselves a copy of the Rough Guide to the Cape Flats.

Oh, wait... maybe that was the intention? Perhaps this is some sort of witty morality play about rape? Perhaps it's meant to cleverly illustrate the point that, just because someone's showing you her pantie, it doesn't mean she wants it to be ripped down?

By the way, if you're wondering what a pantie is, that's what people in the Cape have decided is the singular for panties.

As in, "sies, pull up your jean, the top of your pantie is showing."

According to a news report, though, "the underwear, donated by various sponsors, was meant to symbolise the intimacy of women and girls and to emphasise to men that they should not recklessly continue to abuse women and children."

Now, given the abysmal state of reporting in the press lately, I'm not predisposed to believe that this is an actual quote from the DA.

It's more likely that it's the usual garbled attempt by some cub reporter to convey a concept that he or she doesn't grasp, in a language he or she can't use, to a readership that he or she doesn't understand.

'Our morals - one size fits all'

But, on the off chance that the DA could have said something as stupid as this (unlikely, I know), let's look at it a little more closely. You're hanging up 22 483 pairs of panties to emphasise intimacy, and this is supposed to be an anti-rape gesture?

Surely it would be better to demystify the idea of underwear as something hidden, forbidden and desirable?

If you're presenting underwear as some sort of threshold of intimacy, you're just perpetuating the myth of woman as fantasy, and it's a short step from there to the idea of woman as desirable object.

No, I can't believe that the DA would make a silly mistake like this. It's more likely that this was a comment on the ANC's distressing propensity for hanging out their dirty laundry in public.

Look, say the DA - our laundry is clean. And, like our morals, one size fits all.

Still, any way you look at it, the Democratic Allsorts have been left with their trousers around their ankles, and their skirts around their necks.

If the ANC is the party that allows its politicians to line their own pockets, the DA is the party that allows you to panty liner your pockets.

Chris Roper would like to point out that there is NO Rough Guide to the Cape Flats. Unless you count The Daily Voice.

Send your comments to Chris or discuss this column now in our debating forum.

See Chris's previous columns in his blog The World.

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