Two Bits – 29 April 2016

The fact that our president continues to disrespect the Constitution of the country should be of great concern to all of us.
In addition to having been found guilty by the Constitutional Court of disregarding the Public Protector’s instruction that he repay some of the millions spent on his Nkandla palace, he was ordered to reprimand the cabinet ministers who allowed R250 million to be spent on supposed security upgrades.
His response was to send letters to two cabinet ministers and one former cabinet minister, saying he had been ordered to send them letters of reprimand and these were they. Not a single word of reprimand was uttered.
DA leader Maimane called them a joke and Julius Malema went further – he said Zuma was showing the Constitutional Court and the Public Protector the middle finger.
Zuma has been behaving as though he is above the law. He showed not the slightest remorse at the court’s finding and his apology in Parliament meant absolutely nothing. An apology coupled with an excuse is not an apology.
This, the firing of Nene that cost the country R500 billion and counting, his questionable links with the billionaire Guptas and many other matters, make it clear that he is a liability to his party and the country.
The calls for him to go from the ‘Old Guard’ like Tutu, Kasrils, Vavi and Manuel (as telling, the silence from many more) and the ANC in Gauteng, contrasted to fierce support from all other provinces and the youth and women’s leagues, reveal a party deeply divided over its future.
Of course, making hay while the sun shines is one Julius Malema, who has become increasingly militant in his demands.
Interviewed on the Al Jezeerah TV channel last weekend, Malema says the EFF “will run out of patience very soon and we will remove this government through the barrel of a gun” if the ANC continues to respond violently to peaceful protests.
“We are a very peaceful organisation and we fight our battles through peaceful means, through the courts, through parliament, through mass moblisation,” he said.
“We do that peacefully. But at times, government gets tempted to respond to such with violence. They beat us up in parliament and they send soldiers to places like Alexandra where people are protesting. We will run out of patience very soon and we will remove this government through the barrel of a gun.”
But, he says, Zuma is not the EFF’s real target.
“We are not waged in a war against Zuma and the ANC. We are waging a war against white monopoly capital. Zuma is not our enemy. The ANC is not our enemy. They are standing in our way to crushing white monopoly capital, which has stolen our land, which controls the wealth of our country.”
So those are Julius’ true colours! His remarks would be regarded as treasonous in most countries, but I guess that’s what he wants, to be locked up and become a martyr. The one thing lacking from his CV is a spell in jail. We know that he admires Bob Mugabe to our north, and now it looks as though Zuma is also vying to take a feather from Mugabe’s cap.
Interesting and challenging times lie ahead.
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Traditional marriages are very much part of life in South Africa, and calculation of lobola (or bride price) is a serious and lengthy business, involving much discussion and negotiation between the families.
Well, in this technological age, it just had to happen. There are now lobola calculator apps for your smartphone! I’m far too cheap to pay R18.99 for the Apple one (they’re onto a good thing) so reporter Elana Geist downloaded a free Android version to play with.
The app asks whether the suitors are employed, their education levels, whether they smoke and drink, and how many sexual partners they’ve had. The woman gets a few more questions – whether she can bake, cook and clean, whether she is lazy and how many children she has. A child is a recommendation, by the way, proving she is fertile.
The app then calculates how much the groom can afford and how much the bride is worth, then attempts to reach a price halfway between. The traditional average, reporter Sboniso Dlamini reckoned, was about 11 beasts (and that’ll set you back about R70 000!). Elana was chuffed that it said she was worth 21 cows, but the guys said there might be some bugs in that app.
When I married Rose I presented her farmer father with a magnificent clay beast, as a bit of a joke. But he didn’t see it that way. To the end of his days, he maintained that I still owed him 10 head of cattle!
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Bob was in trouble. He forgot his wedding anniversary. His wife was really angry. She told him “Tomorrow morning, I expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from 0 to 200 in six seconds AND IT BETTER BE THERE!”
The next morning he got up early and left for work. When his wife woke up, she looked out the window and sure enough there was a box gift-wrapped in the middle of the driveway. Confused, the wife put on her robe and ran out to the driveway, brought the box back in the house. She opened it and found a brand new bathroom scale.
Bob has been missing since Friday.