“Growing up, things were just easier and better” misremembers old man

A wave of nostalgia is sweeping the world today, after a man – who lived through World War 2, Apartheid and the violent civil rights protests of the 70s – reminded us all that his childhood was “a more innocent, less complicated time to be growing up as a kid.”

“Growing up back then, it was just an easier, more innocent time,” said 87-year-old Jeremy Smith with a wistful smile while completely ignoring the ugly historical and political contexts of his upbringing. “Whenever you wanted, you could go outside with your friends, play endless imaginative games outdoors and not once worry about your safety,” he added, totally washing over the horrific truths faced by thousands of women and minority groups at the time.

“Nowadays, our children’s innocence has been lost to glowing screens and an unending stream of violent imagery on TV.”

He attributes some of this latest generation’s moral degradation and degeneration of family values to the spreading scourge of technology.

“Technology is ruining society and spoiling this latest’s generation’s childhoods,” he explained while failing to mention to myriad technological, industrial, medical and social advancements and breakthroughs that make life incomparably, infinitely better than it was 50 years ago. "I mean, what good has any of it really done us?"

“In my day, people were friendly and would stop to greet each other in the street. We’ve become so engrossed by our glowing screens that we’ve lost the human touch,” he said with a sad smile that utterly overlooked the evils of the NP and Hitler's Third Reich and the human- and civil rights abuses that exposed mankind’s repugnant capacity for hatred during most of the 20th century.

“It was a simpler, easier time. A time before bank cards and cellphones and high-speed wi-fi and bottled milk and the modern industrial revolution and four hundred kinds of breakfast cereal. A time where you could just go sit on a riverbank after a long day of ploughing the fields so that you wouldn't starve to death during the winter and just enjoy the simple pleasures that this beautiful world has to offer.”

And many people agree.

Goldi is just one of hundreds of 20-something-year-old
white girls who think they should have been born in a time
devoid of modern science, medicine, technology, or civil rights. 

“I think he’s totally right,” said fashionista and lifestyle blogger Goldi Nera. “This modern era sucks so much. I was born too late.”

“I should have been born in the romantic ages of knights and chivalry,” said the twenty-something-year-old white girl who thinks she lives in a goddamn Lana Del Ray video or something.

“Or even as a youthful and carefree flapper surrounded by beautiful dresses and champagne and the dazzling parties and true elegance of the 1920s?” she added, failing to realise that statistically she would probably have been born far, far from this extreme outlier of human experience, most likely as a peasant farmer in Southern China, or a laundry woman washing the puke out of Gatsby’s sheets.

“Every day I sit in my apartment sipping my mocca-spice latte while I use my Macbook Air Pro and high-speed ADSL to look at Pintrest photos of the beautiful balls and dresses of the 18th century and I think, ‘God they had it so, so good.’”

But luckily for her, help is on its way.

“We’re only too happy to help her live this seemingly impossible dream,” said her parents in a prepared statement. “We’ve bought her some dresses, cut up her credit card, taken away her right to vote, and arranged for her to enter into a loveless marriage."

And hey, if she complains, we’ll just say ‘you’re a woman, STFU and get back into the kitchen’. It’ll be like she’s actually there!”

Google launches new Rhodes-debate-inspired App

UCT Press Release: Rhodes Statue will be demolished

UCT makes its final decision on the controversial matter of the Cecil John Rhodes statue.

Text reads:

Date: 24 March 2015

Alumni, colleagues, and fellow students,

By now you’re all aware of the heated and bitter debate happening on social media and on campus concerning the controversial Cecil John Rhodes memorial statue located on the Jammie stairs. Since the furore kicked off, strong public pressure has mounted on UCT to take a decision on what to do with this statue, this painful reminder of our imperfect past.

And, having listened to the all the rational arguments, heartfelt submissions, ad hominem spiteful tweets, disingenuous oversimplifications and absurd Hitler comparisons on both sides of this debate, we’re pleased to announce that we’ve come to a decision.

The statue will fall.

Of course, this is only the first step in a long, long journey of progressive change to combat the institutional racism and elitism that, unlike that blonde girl you dated last year, you can’t escape even if you take the long way around campus to the Politics department.

Many ask us, “CRS, what kinds of socially progressive programs will you put into place to ensure that postive change and justice is rooted into our institution’s core?”. Many email me asking, “Eric, what sorts of scholarships and funding programs for disenfranchised youth will you source and offer to ensure that this protest isn’t just a skin-deep, feel-good, masturbatory paintjob?”

And to you I say, there is still so much work to be done before we can consider such trivialities.

Look at the Parliament buildings in Cape Town. Look at the Union buildings in Pretoria. Look all around you – how can we possibly introduce institutional transformative measures when there are still so many monuments to be torn down and free us from the oppressive weight of mental violence?

How could we possibly instigate better equal employment measures, or introduce student funding and financial aid schemes for students from a disadvantaged background if all the buddies of Cecil Steel-eyes – like Jan Smuts - glaring down at downtrodden South Africans from their places of honour?

How could we create new student scholarship opportunities or education programs aimed at including unheard authors and thinkers in our academic discourse if we’re reminded at every turn how racist everyone except us is?

And let us gaze turn overseas. What about The Pyramids of Giza? Ofttimes shrouded in a false veil of grandeur, these are nothing more than death relics that represent a terrible and oppressive age of slavery and horror. And it doesn’t stop there: we look at Mount Rushmoore, The Eiffel Tower, Great Wall of China, The Cistine Chapel, Notre Dame, Woolworths, and even the Great railroads of the United States. Time and time again, where most see just buildings, we see the blood-soaked bodies of the millions whose bones have served as cement and toothpicks.

Until these artefacts are demolished, how can we call the world truly equal and inclusive?

This is just the beginning of the program, however.

Next, we’ll ban religion, destroy every mosque, church and place of worship. After all, almost every religion is built on a disgusting history of slavery, genocide, executions, state-sanctioned torture, and hatred, not to mention Holy Crusades that were little more than giant ethnical cleansings, rampant accusations of paedophilia, extremist terror attacks and brutal beheadings.

Then we’ll destroy all art, all books. These are nothing more than the products of oppressive heritages. Every word and sentence, every brush stroke or musical chord, is a disgusting representation of the systems that oppressed and discriminated millions.

Then we’ll behead every person whose family tree is fertilised with the blood and watered with the sweat of the oppressed.

Then, because humanity itself has destroyed and forced into extinction countless species on this planet, and because our daily existence is at the cost of the lives and freedom of millions of creatures and fellow humans, we’ll mass murder the entire human population, finally ridding our beautiful world of all reminders of how terrible history is.

Some have said to us, “but Eric, there is a nuanced middleground in between these two dichotomous extremes that doesn’t require such an extremist stance on the matter, a calmer, more considered halfway house where we can introduce more level-headed considered programs and actions that will contribute to true social justice instead of sowing dissent by exacerbating entrenched butthurt”. And to this we say, “racism, in any form, requires an extreme response.”

Finally, in this beautiful utopian world where we can pursue academic excellence free from the horrifying realities of the past, we can turn our attention to incorporating progressive changes to the institutional policies and politics of our esteemed university.

Yours in solidarity,

Eric Jeffries

CRS President 2015

Internet commenters unsure which racial epithet to use

'Uncle Tom Sell-out, or arrogant whitey?', ponder debate enthusiasts

Following a comment posted ten minutes ago online concerning the controversial issue of the University of Cape Town's Cecil John Rhodes memorial statue, online commenters, social media activists, and digital bigots on both sides of the debate have told reporters they are still unsure which utterly unnecessary, hurtful racist slur to bash into their well-worn keyboards.

Citing the "ambiguous profile picture" of the Facebook user in question and touching on her "scant profile information", internet users across South Africa are still uncertain whether to reply to her call for a "return to calm and considerate debate free from ridiculous racist slurs, mockery, ad hominem attacks and rhetoric fallacies" with a "STFU you stupid and arrogant white crybaby upholding a legacy of oppression" or a "OMG look at this sellout counterrevolutionary Uncle Tom brainwashed into defending white privilege."

"When you click on the thumbnail of the post next to this peaceful, non-toxic plea to her fellow citizens that we treat each other with the respect and dignity that we all, as human beings, deserve, all we can see is a group shot with four girls of a varying range of skin colours," said 1st-year politics student and fiercely involved social media RhodesMustFall debater, Vlei Mwar.

"So, as of this moment, we can't be sure which form of cyber bullying and utterly disrespectful slander to employ. I mean, at this stage we don't know if she's white or black, so how are we supposed to pick which racially charged epithet to use in scorning her personal, subjective stance on the matter?"

"I mean, we could just call her a 'fucking stupid bitch' who should 'go and educate herself' and 'read a book about the history of this before you bring your dumb comments' - you know, a general, non-racial smear that is easily applied to people of any race, religion or creed online," explained Mwar, "but when it comes to debates as important as this, we think that if we're not going to be considerate, thoughtful and critically engaged in the current discourse, we should at least apply that high-level logic-based rational thinking to our short-sighted, debate-sullying engagements with other people."

However, not all internauts agree, with one side of the camp calling for a calm and respectful waiting period before heaping ridicule and abuse on her and likening her to something that should be universally despised and ostracised.

"We're not mindless animals," said Rashad Homnem. "I mean, why in the world would anyone in this nationally-watched debate sully the importance of mature, respectful discourse with ridiculous things like making over-simplistic comparisons between two unconnected, vastly dissimilar people?'

"Besides," added Homnem, "even if someone doesn't tip us off, what's not being able to call one out of hundreds of people a 'fucking stupid blind moron who should shut the fuck up because you don't know what you're talking about'? I'm pretty sure we can let this one slide."

Muse and Abuse would like to get this debate going by preemptively calling you all massive festering cockworms.

“I accidentally shat myself” admits Rhodes statue protester

Academics accused of “reading into things too much, bru” after damning confession is heard.

The controversy surrounding the Cecil John Rhodes statue has blown out of all proportion today, after a scathing interview revealed that creator of the political movement and author of the ‘poop incident’ against the heavily debated statue, actually accidentally soiled himself.

“It’s true,” said the clearly distraught Politics student, Maxwell Troespou.

“I was doing the butt-clenching Prairie-dog duckwalk between the Pol and Social Sciences buildings when the attack struck. As I stood there, a puddle of my own filth pooling in my underrods, I thought, ‘oh shit, what now? I’ve gotta get rid of this. Of course there was no bin around, so I dumped it on the closest thing possible.”

And that closest thing just happened to be the statue. With furtive glances left and right, he attempted to quickly stash his ruined briefs.

“I thought the small crevice in his lap would sufficiently conceal my mistake,” he lamented. Alas this is where his statue-atory jape was spotted.

“This lady came up to me and asked me ‘what the hell are you doing?’. I froze and quickly shouted ‘Apartheid and Race!’ – you know, what I always shout when I get in an argument I’m scared of losing. Lucky for me, I’m a Post-grad and a Pol major, so I’m used to talking convincing-sounding crap at a moment’s notice.”

However, despite the confession, protest supporters have said it’s too late to turn back now, with UCT standing by its decision that the Rhodes monument must be removed.

“It’s kinda snowballed out of control,” said one marcher, who now feels dumb after the 14000 words and 3 676 tweets he’s written online critiquing elitism and institutionalised racism since the furore started. “And not just because of the resounding public support, thousand-strong marches and endless internet debate - just think of the Twitter followers I would lose if I were to back down now?”

This isn’t the first time such an eventuality has occurred on the famous Cape Town campus. Back in 2011, an Art student accidentally spilt paint all over her masters exhibition pieces, which quickly became part of a Masterclass exhibition series in half a dozen galleries.

“I’m in too deep to say anything now,” she said. “I mean, what did you expect me to say to my supervisor when he waffled on about ‘genius counter-intuitivity of a new post-peinture style’ and how ‘these works represented a breathtakingly bold defiance of the reductive transfixion of art into a meaningless product aimed at garnering marks or money’?”

And it doesn’t end there.

“Yesterday I left some blank canvasses in my gallery because I was in too much of a rush to stash them in my studio,” she told. “An art critic saw them, and now I’ve been force to announce my latest ‘Negative White’ series.”

“Why is the teaching assistant white?” and other burning questions

A guest post by Emilia d’Orvey, final-year Collège student*

My dear 3^ième Class of the three Collèges Lycée Générals in Toulouse who have been caught up in this confusing furore, I think it’s about time we addressed the elephant in the room. Well, it’s not an elephant, but he probably rides one to school, so I think the comparison is warranted.

Ever since last week, I think we can all agree that our normal English classes have been utterly upset by the arrival of a confounding guest. A guest who just goes against all expectations. A guest who may or may not be a fraud.

”If he comes from Africa, then why is he white?”

We all have these questions, don’t we? I mean, come on. If he really is from South Africa, then why is he white? Only black people come from Africa, that much is certain. And yes, he may explain to us (in painfully slow and patronising English, often accentuating his accent – I mean, isn’t it really racist to talk to second-language speakers reeeeaaaalllllyyy ssssllloooowwwllyy?) using endless statistics that there *are* white people in South Africa, over 6 million of them, but I think we all know that statistics are a lie. In fact, 75.3245% of statistics are made up on the spot to make your hashed argument seem believable or well-informed.

The assistant. Who is he? Why is he white?
We need answers.

There are other burning questions, too. Meaningful questions that just need to be answered. Does he speak French? I mean, really? Can he say some words in French? And why does he come here? How tall is he? Is he married? Does he have children? Is he really 23 years old? What kinds of animals are there in Souws’Africa? Does he like football? Does he like France? Has he ever touched Nelson Mandela? Until we get these answers, none of us will rest easy.

And if he is supposed to be a Cultural Artifact to be wheeled out at every lesson to be the voice, face, and sole representative of the entirety of South African culture, then why is he trying to complicate things? Already, he is trying to destroy established facts about South Africa that we know to be true. Nelson Mandela ended Apartheid singlehandedly. Animals roam the streets. Crime is terrible everywhere. Worse than this, he now tells us that not all South Africans are the same. 11 official languages? Dozens of different ethnic groups with complex histories and roots stretching back thousands of years across the subcontinent, Africa and the world? What madness is this?

If he really is who he says he is, then I issue this challenge: give us these answers. Hopefully, he will hear this and deliver unto us the knowledge that is necessary for the continuation of our normal lives. He is here for the rest of the school year (he says their schools start in January, run from 7:45am until the late evening, have obligatory sports AND and are divided into separate boy/girl institutes with their own obligatory uniforms!!!). Perhaps, in time, he may deliver these answers. However, my fellow étudiants, I think he may just leave us with even more questions.

Questions like “do you want a cigarette?” when we’re outside the school gates.

*Muse and Abuse would like to thank resident translator Matthew de Klerk for garbling the ultimately superior and far more beautiful language of French and turning it into the ugly, ear-splitting drone of beastial English. Yeah. Thanks a lot.

“Are we the Bad Guys?” – Apartheid minister diary

Recent declassified top-level Apartheid Minister diaries that they forgot to shred after handing over power in 1994 have surprised all South Africans today, with their deeply personal and heartfelt philosophical self-scrutiny, with several of the personal Agony Aunt booklets going so far as to ask outright if maybe “we’re the baddies”.

The diaries, which were unearthed yesterday and are purported to belong to Daniel Francoise Malan, Hendrik Verwoerd and Peter Willem Botha, contain many startling self-admonishments.

“Dear Diary, today I started to think that maybe the international media and the thousands of sanctions against us might be justified,” said one diary. “The beatings, the political assassinations and repression, the restrictive pass laws, and the racial prejudice – are we like Hitler and those Nazi fellows? I mean, we don’t wear leather or have spikey helmets, but still... I just don’t know any more. I feel conflicted.”

The author went on to berate himself at length before adding, “I really hope we're not the baddies. I mean, I’m not racist. Some of my best garden boys are black! If we are the bad guys, then it could be seriously awkward – haha, can you imagine the racial tension and legacy of social inequality that could create in a future South Africa?”

However, many ministers whose personal diaries were also declassified defended their actions, saying “all we want is peace.”

“All we want to do is live peacefully and without problems in our own little corner of the world,” said Verwoede’s pages, ”and also retain total political, mineral, territorial, military, societal, legislative and societal superiority – is that too much to ask?”

He went on to add that it was “probably too late to stop now anyway.”

“We’re already committed. It’s not like we can just say ‘oh, our bad, bro’ and tell everyone who votes for us to stop being racist dicks.”

Verwoede did stress, however, that he still had yet to make up his mind about the whole thing.

“I’ll give the whole ‘are we the racist dick bad guys’ thing some more thought later,” he said. “Maybe after Phineas has cut the lawn and Sophia has cooked dinner and I’ve given Xolile his daily trashing for no apparent reason, I'll be able to relax and work out if I'm evil or not.”

Thousands of dead South Africans vote

It has been a fantastic year for Constitutional Rights this week, after Government officials upheld everyone’s Constitutionally-enshrined right to cast their ballot, regardless of their individual metabolic rate.

“In the past, the vote – not to mention many, many other fundamental rights – were denied to a great many people because of many silly factors,” said government spokesperson and Independent Electoral Commission voter’s roll manager Sam Ngoma. “Never again will we return to such an oppressive tyrannical system of government. People should be allowed to vote whether they are black, white, Indian, or slowly decomposing in a cemetery somewhere.”

The decision to allow the interred South Africans (which are now being formally being labelled as a more politically-correct “previously breathing”) is not the first time such a democratic freedom has been extended to those who have moved off this earthly coil.

“Zimbabwe has a proud, proud history of allowing these most crucial democratic rights to the most marginalised of our community: those who have suffered death. In the 80’s we even had a huge group of military-trained voting coordinators roaming the country to help mostly Ndebele people join this queue-free voting station. The locals even had a loving nickname for our boys and their work: the ‘Green Bombers’ and ‘Gukurahundi’, ” said ZANU-PF Voting Coordinator Uraya Ndokurova, who has a degree in Political Management and Stomping on Blair-loving Oppostion Leader’s Heads. “Just because you’ve buried someone, doesn’t mean you must bury our beloved Constitution with them!”

He went on to add that that rejecting this particular demographics’ vote was a popular pastime in the Western world.

“How typical of these greedy, sanction-loving, colonial oppressors,” he said. “Sure, they get some things right, like the US dollar, medical technologies and awesome expensive Mercedes Benzes, but otherwise they are no different to their slave-owning forefathers.”

The move has been met with widespread approval, by both the living and the dead.

“It’s great,” said one voter who spoke to us via Ouija Board, “I see all my family, and there are no queues for us. Also, the people that help us to make our disembodied X are so friendly and uncorrupt and helpful.”

Since the massive announcement, government officials have announced that in future a Ministerial Portfolio for Contacting the Dead will be set up using only the most highly advanced techniques in contacting the deceased, such as throwing a handful of KFC bones and talking to yourself in gibberish after drinking something containing battery acid and industrial-strength bleach, and only the most highly qualified sangomas and naangas to ensure that the voters’ electoral decisions are accurately interpreted.

“We really, really want to be utterly certain of their vote before making a cross,” he said. “Techniques like these are fool-proof. We know. Many of our cadre have tried to screw them up and failed.”

However, government officials have since confirmed that this is but the beginning of a new era in voting.

“In future, we want to extend these simple and hard-won freedoms and rights to everyone,” said Ngoma, “even those poor and disenfranchised South Africans who have yet to be born. Just because they technically don’t exist yet, it does not mean they won’t want to vote ANC. I’m sorry, can you cut that last word out when you publish?”