Between Christmas ceasefires, Maga hats and seaside strolls, the performance of persecution reaches absurd new heights
A couple my son knows have been granted refugee status in the US. Just in time. Because as a friend pointed out, wasn’t it thoughtful that the white genocide was put on hold in December so that okes could take their bakkies to Umhlanga or Kruger Park or Jeffrey’s Bay for their holidays, where they could braai and share stories about how dreadful their lives were beneath the blue, hot sky, while their families built sandcastles or lay by the pool or watched elephants…
Presumably, the genocide all started again in earnest on 10 January, like World War I troops going back into the trenches after the Christmas Day ceasefire.
Melania movie that wasn’t
However, Christmas is only a memory now, we scraped through January, and in these darkest of days, the Melania movie was promised like a beam of light – an insider look at kiss-proof hats and colour schemes for presidential balls (hint: white and gold) – but then was dropped from South African cinemas.
How much more suffering must the people take?
An American friend messaged me to say she was very proud of South Africa for not eating this particular poop sandwich and for generally standing up to Trump’s bullyboy tactics, but I set her right quickly: a number of my compatriots would joyfully partake of this latest gilded turd given the chance, I told her.
Watching genocide at the bioscope
Many already gorge themselves at the Trump eat-as-much-poopas-you-like buffet, so an afternoon of Melania at the movies would be just the thing, feeling seen while nursing a bucket of popcorn along with stifled rage at being the victim of so much discrimination, land appropriation and targeted killing.
Try explaining that to a black fella. Because that’s how people pass time during genocide, at the bioscope. It’s important to take a break from all that refugee paperwork.
They also might visit my son’s local park in Cape Town, with a red Maga hat perched defiantly atop their little head because this is a hellscape in which they are forced to take a balmy sunset stroll, near the sea with dogs at play and children on swings and everyone having a good time, just like Rwanda in 1994.
Sometimes they even write Trump in big letters on the walls. But do they realise that triumphal Christmas returns will be impossible when they become refugees? Because refugees don’t go home.
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