Why we should let animals rule the world

With everything that's happening on the political landscape, the temptation to draw parallels between South Africa's current situation and that of the animals in George Orwell's Animal Farm is irresistible.

In the unlikely event that anyone reading this has never read Animal Farm, it's a tale of an animal uprising on a fictional farm in England. The animals' storming of the Bastille moment is described by Orwell thus: "They [the humans] were gored, kicked, bitten, trampled on. There was not an animal on the farm that did not take vengeance on them after his own fashion."

This text sends shivers into the deep recesses of my soul. I hope that no one reading this hallucinates that this column is my own magnum opus, akin to Sipho Pityana's, at that now-famous ANC branch meeting disguised as a funeral. That's not how I roll.

My interest in Animal Farm is not about drawing parallels between Oliver Tambo and Old Major, President Zuma and Napoleon, Malema and Snowball, or likening Squealer to Gwede Mantashe.

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My interest is in the recurring dream I have where the animals in our midst finally discover that there is strength in unity and actually come for us. Literally.

Am I the only one who thinks that creatures have been waging a low-intensity guerrilla war on humans? I am? Then please explain how I have been attacked by every beast under the sun from an elephant to a mosquito. OK, I'm exaggerating the "attack" part of my run-in with an enraged elephant, I admit. All Dumbo did was raise his trunk heavenwards and play his trumpet like Hugh Masekela.

What I am not exaggerating, though, is that a warthog nearly snapped the thin twigs that join my knees to my ankles while I was walking through the Phinda Private Game Reserve a few years ago.

Let's ignore the ants, flies, mosquitoes and even tapeworms that attack us about 0.1 nanoseconds after we leave the womb; my first recollection of being attacked by an animal is when the family cat clawed me on the arm at about age three.

People in my hood didn't believe in naming cats back in 1975 because names breed familiarity, which breeds contempt. So I believe the cat's name was Kati (Zulu corruption of the word "cat"). My crime? A bone of contention about a literal chicken bone I was dangling carelessly in my hand.

The second memory involves those big-headed red fire ants we called by their Afrikaans name, rooi miere. This childhood friend of mine, Thiza, let me in on the fact that if one bit off the heads of rooi miere and chewed them, untold orgasmic tastes awaited. What he didn't tell me is that those fire ants have a sting worse than 20 bees. Especially on the tongue.

During the holidays we used to be shipped off to "the farms". In my case, this was a place called EmaQadini, in the Valley of a Thousand Hills. This is when I had my first lesson in how protective animals are of their young.

block_quotes_start I'm reliably told that on that day my Native American name became Pigeon Poo on Head. But I'm not mad. I had it coming. We all do block_quotes_end

The township boy that I was, I was too stupid to understand that approaching a calf strolling with her mother is a terrible idea. As I fled the scene screaming like a rabid orang-utan, with clenched butt cheeks to avoid the horny enema, my lifelong bovinophobia was installed deep in my psyche.

Because I can be thick sometimes, I didn't learn my lesson immediately. It took an enraged hen pecking furiously at my calves to learn never to try to pick up a chick. It finally dawned on me never to approach any animal's babies after a run-in with a sparrow husband/wife tag team. A chick had fallen off the nest and, being the bleeding-heart animal lover that I am, I was trying to return it.

The list of my altercations with animals is endless. Bees. Wasps. A neighbour's dog. I've even been bitten by a snake. Ticks. When I was in Grade 8 at Inkamana High some fellow brought back with him an army of head lice after the holidays.

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A gift he kept giving to the rest of us. I remember scratching my own herd of lice onto a piece of paper during evening study session. Heck, I even held my own Vryheid July race to see which one would reach the edge first.

But the scariest creature I have ever been attacked by has got to be a goose. I still have nightmares about the time I was pinned against a wall by a relentless, cackling goose at a friend's house.

I hope no one thinks that I don't like the other animals in our kingdom. I love animals. If anything, should animals start attacking humans like in that James Patterson TV series Zoo, it would be poetic justice.

A few years ago I shared how, while I was attending the Time of the Writer literary festival, a pigeon suffering from diarrhoea deposited its load on my head in full view of international writers from more than 15 countries.

I'm reliably told that on that day my Native American name became Pigeon Poo on Head. But I'm not mad. I had it coming. We all do.

E-mail  lifestyle@sundaytimes.co.za or follow him on Twitter @NdumisoNgcobo