K1: Koo, I am so glad to see you today! Especially, as you are wearing such a broad smile as I have not seen you exhibit for – oh – onwards of two decades!
Two decades? And whose fault is that, if I may ask? You used to make me laugh so much, but now – well – I hardly see you for days, let alone hear something from you that makes me laugh.
– It is not my fault. Just the way of the world. Formerly, I had only me and some lucky woman to worry about. Now, that woman has become several women (all in one skin, though!) plus a few bodies in other skins
– Oh, for that time when man went out, stayed out for as long as he liked; and got home only when he felt like it!
– But as I say, you’ve got a smile back. And there’s no-one that can show how he feels as well as you do!
– Well, I’m pleased that the people of South Africa have been peacefully electing a new government for themselves.
They happily gave all their votes to the ANC thirty years ago. But no sooner had their first President, Nelson Mandela, died than they began to follow the welltrodden African road – i.e. forget the promises made to the people; ignore their lack of good roads, health facilities, water, education and a reliable supply of electricity. Buy unnecessary things like sophisticated arms from the countries that supplied such arms to your former enemies in the apartheid era. Use state resources to achieve personal ends to such an extent that a new name is coined for your particular mode of corruption – your crime is called “state capture” (no less!) [– Hmmm. But then the country woke up and the ANC fell apart?
– Yes. Zuma, the man who succeeded Mandela had to break away! Now, he’s formed his own party in his ethnic area and hopes that the people there will remember the days when they used to “toyi-toyi” (dance) with him to a tune called “Bring me my machine-gun!”
– Do you think they’ll vote for him?
– We shall know the result of the election this weekend. For me, the important things is that the people of South Africa will prove to the world that they too are capable of maintaining different political opinions.
That’s what political struggle should be about. If you get power and you misuse it to acquire wealth illegally, the power should be wrested from your hands. But it must be done with votes, not guns.
– Ah, mit will be nice if a new coalition of incorruptible politicians were to win the election.
– You think they would change things?
– Who knows? At least they would get the chance to show the other side of South Africa.
–The South Africa that brought a young lady called Puseletu all the way to Ghana to live in exile here at such a young age!
– Do you remember Tennyson
Makiwane?
– Arthur Maimane?
– Iskia Mphahlele?
– Don Matera?
– Oh stop! You’ll make me cry! It was you who said I had a nice, broad smile?
– If you feel like crying, just remember the day that Oliver Tambo’s daughter, Tembi, brandished a fisted salute as Mandela was sworn in as President!
– HAIL AZANIA!