What is this, tongues again?

It is told that Aesop, the fabler and slave to the philosopher, Democritus, was asked by his master to prepare a sumptuous meal for a banquet with his friends and student. Aesop, being cheeky too big for his shoes slave decided to teach his master a lesson in manners. He prepared a meal made up of only tongues. Twice he did, dishing them accompanied by well thought lectures on the values of tongues. The third time when one of Democritus’ friend was served a dish of tongues exclaimed; ‘What is this, tongues again? Democritus, I’m getting tongue tied from eating tongues.’ Thus he stood up to go and puke outside.

That the feeling I had when some of you this week drew my attention to our begrudged friend, David Bullard, the aspersive columnist at the Sunday Times. After reading his latest stint, Uncolonised Africa wouldn’t know what it was missing, I discovered he’s growing less subtle in stating the tract of his column in his recent article. The gist of his argument, as always, is that it is thanks to the Occident that Africa, and South Africa in particular, is civilized and developed.

Personally, even as far as imperialist go, Bullard has became quite unoriginal and, frankly, boring as a broken record long time ago. He’s really nothing more than a waste of creative energy with recycled superior complex, mouldy with depth bang of a wet firecracker. It’d be an even greater waste of time to write about him if what he was saying was not something going around South African white liberal corridors, prattling as bons mots.

The kind of vulgarity associated with Bullard’s writing rise to anarchist level when it attempts to engage serious subjects like history with its flurry of coruscating callow cartoonist logic. He just adds to the scarifying cacophony than the voice of reason in our country. Where he is right it’s for the wrong reasons, and is rude. And as Eric Hoffer’s lovely line goes; “rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.”

I use to be a fan of Bullard’s antagonistic humour until I found what I thought to be medicine in sugar coat gradually turning into sugar coated poison. There’s next to nothing cathartic about it, in fact I found it not to be offensive and sometimes downright racist, as most of you have now come to realise from his latest issue, Uncolonised Africa wouldn’t know what it was missing. Of course Bullard and his coterie would see me as too sensitive to the race issue and, together with the likes of president Mbeki, accuse of having Stalinist sensitivity to criticism. So I shall leave it at that, acquiesce with a realisation that the distant between our worlds seem to be uncrossable.

I thought I made it clear also that I’m rather tired of the autistic babble of the Sunday Times. And so am rather discouraged when people egg me on to check this article or the other there. I must emphasise; I’m sure there are people out there who get pleasure and edification in reading that sort of thing, I’m not one of them, hence I stopped buying it. Even now, reading it after a welcome hiatus of about two months, I felt I was returning into a caldron of hectoring, bragging, lazy makers of mash-ups and vapid insights. The only thing worse than living in an unbearable society, as SA is gradually growing, is having to read the unbearable nonsense written by most of the commentators there. So please, have mercy on me. The best way to treat a bore is to ignore them.

There is Papua New Guinea something they call kros, a traditional angry tirade by a wife directed at a husband with the intention of being heard by everyone in the village. Many husbands endure it without uttering a single word as one of those things a guy has to go through, pms induced and all. Pass the kros of course the wife usual gets a beating from the husband if he keeps on it longer than it is necessary. Why not we take the likes of Bullard as something we’ve to go through, imperialist induced nostalgia and all. Not that I propose the use of stick if they keep on it longer than necessary. Let’s rather stick to our constitutional values, and never resorting to any violent means to silence anyone. We use the same logic against those who scream for the death penalty: You don’t rise above cruelty, foolishness, prejudice, or injustice by descending to its level.


Paul Theroux, reviewing Tim Jeal’s biography of Henry Morton Stanley, Stanley, I Presume begins thus: ‘Poor Africa, the happy hunting ground of the mythomaniac, the rock star buffing up his or her image, the missionary with a faith to sell, the child buyer, the retailer of dirty drugs or toxic cigarettes, the editor in search of a scoop, the empire builder, the aid worker, the tycoon wishing to rid himself of his millions, the school builder with a bucket of patronage, the experimenting economist, the diamond merchant, the oil executive, the explorer, the slave trader, the eco-tourist, the adventure traveller, the bird watcher, the travel writer, the escapee, the banker, the busybody, the Mandela-sniffer, the political fantasist, the buccaneer and your cousin the Peace Corps Volunteer.’ And now we can also add; the impotent imperialist stranded a wrong century. Their wish, most, is to transform themselves while wanting to change Africa, but, as that original master imperialist of them all, Stanley, saw it; “We went into the heart of Africa self-invited—therein lies our fault,”. And they never really embodied her genius loci, the spirit of the land, so they decay in slow burn motion of liver-lipped irony and sterile imagination.