'Don't read this with that white tendency!'
2010-04-13 07:45
To bastardise the words of Charles Dickens, the past week was the best of weeks, it was the worst of weeks; it was seven days of tragedy, it was seven days of jest; it was a week of grace, it was a week of tactlessness. All in all, it was a week that even surprised South Africans who thought they’d seen it all.
Steven Spielberg with all his majestic imagination could never have directed the events of last week. We were on edge yet we laughed. It was as if God decided that he would mix tragedy with comedy as if to take the edge off a little. We laughed because there was nothing else to do.
The opening salvo that would be the beginnings of an unexpectedly humorous week came in the form of one Mr Visagie of the AWB, who, upon taking exception after being interrupted during an e.tv news television interview, stripped himself of his microphone as if to expose his racist self. “Don’t errup… don’t interrupt me, bye,” as he threw his microphone away and said, “Take away this sh*t!” Then he walks back to the guest and says, “And you won’t dare interrupting me!” The situation was both serious and amusing.
What followed this tense confrontation could never have been scripted by the world’s greatest comedian. In an attempt to prevent Visagie from intimidating the studio guest, the news-reader stands up to create a buffer zone between the female studio guest and the belligerent Visagie who seemed to be charging like the bulls I imagine he farms. The newsreader says, “Don’t touch me on my studio, don’t touch me on my studio,” repeatedly, to which the AWB man says, “I will touch you on your studio.” For your viewing pleasure, here is a YouTube clip of the confrontation.
“Touch me ‘on’ my studio” has taken a life of its own amongst the social media connected, on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Sometime in the past week I was a guest on 3 Talk with Noleen, the very first thing I said to her during the show was, “One of the things I’m really proud of about this country is that you can say things like, don’t touch me on my studio on live TV.” Truth is I went there thinking of a way I could sneak that statement in during the panel discussion. I was after all, ‘on’ her studio. For those of you who want to know, I did touch her ‘on’ her studio and I liked it too.
We were convinced that we had reached our quota of the ridiculous for the week - enter Julius Malema. He could not be outdone. He too, after being interrupted by a BBC journalist, erupted.
He gave us phrases such as “tjatjara”, “you behave or you jump”, “Chief, can you get security to remove this thing here”, “this is not a newsroom this, this is a revolutionary house”. (I suspect he really wanted to say, don’t interrupt me ‘on’ my revolutionary house.) Then he spit out the words, “Don’t come out here, with that white tendency.” After Julius’s tirade the BBC reporter says, “That is rubbish.” Malema retorts with a classic I will never forget, something that will forever live in the annals of South African insults, “Rubbish is what you have covered in that err… trouser! That is rubbish!” Then “Go out! Bastard! You bloody agent!” In a space of a minute and half Malema delivered, not one, not two, not three but seven pure gems. Here is a YouTube video of the incident.
It should be pointed out that Malema also lost it after a BBC journalist not only interrupted him, but said, “That is rubbish,” while he was speaking. The journalist in question was out of order. He didn’t have to speak like that to him. Malema had no business responding the way he did either. He put South Africa in a very embarrassing position. Malema later apologised for the manner in which he reacted.
Malema was not done though. According to City Press and Radio 702 reports, he threw a chair at an ANCYL delegate on Saturday during a provincial conference where a new provincial chairperson of the YL was to be elected.
Now we hear that Terre’Blanche, the white supremacist, may have had sex with a black minor. Seriously, who could possibly make up the news that happens in South Africa? No one said this better than Mark Twain, “Truth is stranger than fiction.”
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