Humour

Calling BS on politicians delivering unchallenged speeches

Ndumiso Ngcobo needs a debate, darn it!

04 March 2018 - 00:00 By Ndumiso Ngcobo

Two significant events occurred on Monday. First, the premier of Gauteng, David Makhura, delivered the state of the province address. My only takeout from that long-as-hell, monotonous arbitrariness was: "You bastards are not paying your e-toll accounts, so I want to make it official that you're not paying."
The second event of consequence was President Ramapostponer keeping us all up till an ungodly hour to tell us he had shifted the pieces on the ANC chessboard. A bit like Arsene Wenger shifting Welbeck and other pathetic Gooner forwards to play in the back four while they're trailing 3-0, if you ask me.
At least President Zuma used to wait for us to be fast asleep to play eeny meeny miney moe with the Finance Ministry. That way, when we woke up to a currency almost R20 to the US dollar, we weren't puffy-eyed from sleep deprivation.I say that these two events were significant because they aroused in me one of my many personality disorders. You see, there are few things I am unable to stomach more than watching someone speak without giving others an opportunity to stand and yell, "You're talking straight out of your colon, you effing tosser!"When Makhura said that as a family man living in Gauteng, he also felt the pinch of the tough financial times we're living in, I leapt almost two metres into the air and yelled at the TV: "You're lying! You don't know how it feels!" Our poor domestic helper, who witnessed this moment of madness, has been giving me a wider than usual berth ever since.
Few people appreciate just how difficult it is to live with this disorder.When I was being trained to be a pious, upstanding Catholic boy during catechism classes, the only thing we were allowed to do was sit there and be dazzled by the teacher. No questions were allowed, ostensibly because the white man with a grey beard in the sky (from the pictures I'd seen) wasn't too keen on Q&A. At least according to His earthly representative with an advanced moustache, standing in front of us in a purple 100% polyester uniform.
It was in 1980, the year of my First Holy Communion, that I couldn't hold it in any longer. I was struggling to understand why Cain was bitching to God about being afraid that people would kill him after being banished from the Garden of Eden after murdering his brother Abel. My eight-year-old mind was in conflict.So I put up my hand and asked the teacher what people Cain was referring to if Cain's folks were the first people created. My ear has never been yanked so hard. As she dragged me outside I was promised the fires of Hades and called the spawn of Lucifer.
My loathing for listening to people making speeches only hardened.
I have never been a member of a political party. The closest I came was when I joined what was then Sansco at university in 1989. We were told that the next natural step was to fill in forms to join the ANC, then a banned organisation.
I didn't have issues with joining a banned organisation. If anything, the idea was extremely romantic and made me feel like Che Guevara. But I had many questions. So it was highly disappointing that, when Peter Mokaba was invited to address us about the importance of joining the ANC, no time was allocated for us to ask him questions.
After he spoke, there was only an opportunity to punch the air and yell, "Amandla!" and "Long live the people's revolutionary movement, long live!"The only political leader of those times I thoroughly enjoyed listening to was the "Lion of the Midlands", Harry Gwala. The entertainment value of his eloquent, erudite and fiery speeches was so high that I didn't feel the urge to spoil the performance with questions such as why The Lion was preaching Stalinism as the Berlin Wall was tumbling down.
However, under normal circumstances, I give occasions where folks are likely to give unchallenged speeches a miss, and I'm glad to report that I'm not the only one.
Nokwanda, one of my Facebook friends, said her biggest problem with church was listening to umuntu oyedwa engaphikiswa (one person who can't be challenged).Enter another friend, Zamani, who related how he was dragged to a "happy clappy" tent service by his ex-wife - one of those churches where the pastor speaks about Jesus like he knows him personally and they'd been playing a round of golf in the a.m: "I called BS when the Lord's servant said if you're born out of wedlock, you're not in God's plan. It helped that his own wife was a bastard. The service stopped and we took it outside.
"After an exchange of loaded words, he apologised and I asked him to apologise to the flock. It was the last time the ex-wife insisted I go to church ... It was a beautiful service."..

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