Julius Malema actually a black Jesus

Thousand of South Africans and millions of Christians around the world wept for joy this evening, after revelations affirming the age-old prophesy of the return of Jesus Christ came true in the form of Julius Malema.

"It took us a while to realise that the loud-mouthed controversy-machine was actually our Dear Lord and Saviour, the Blessed, the Holy Trinity, The Son of God Jesus Christ," said one teary-eyed Christian who had been whispering to herself before bed for the return of our Lord ever since her parents told her which bearded sky dude was the right one, "but once you really think about it, it isn't so hard to come to grips with. The signs are there."

Many theologians and clerical officials have since confirmed that Malema is, in fact, our Messiah.

"If you look at that tome of proven historical fact, our literal instruction manual for our lives here on Earth - the Bible - you can see that Jesus took five fishes and three loaves of bread and divided it again and again to feed thousands," said Biblical Expert Levi Tikus. "Julius, in much the same way, takes a measly government salary and turns it into expensive houses, fancy cars and expensive watches. It's a modern day miracle."

Tikus went on to point out many other similarities that were definitely proof that Malema was Christ come again.

"Jesus was crucified, dead and buried, and yet he rose again on the third day," he said, "and if we look at Julius's political career, he was crufied by the ANC and the mass media, left for dead in the desert of social ostracisation, and yet is back, bigger and badder than ever, the head of his own new burgeoning band of red-bereted disciples. Also, Jesus was kind, compassionate, caring and forgiving, and - I know it might seem like he isn't, but it's true - Julius, beneath the false layer of Shoot the Boer and his controversial hate speech charges, Julius is just a really caring, sweet guy who wants nothing more than peace and forgiveness and SARS to leave him alone."

He also added that literally, we aren't kidding, no satire in this sentence, "if you google 'Jesus in a beret, it comes up with pictures of Julius.'"

The ANC, however, have reacted to this with scorn and derision.

"He isn't Jesus," they said, denying our Lord and Saviour and earning themselves a lower pit in hell than the one that Satan had already reserved for them. "Jesus was a carpenter, and I think we all know how old Juju gets along with Woodwork. JC? More like GG."

The ANC went on to brand him and all those who followed him "counterrevolutionary sell-outs".

"We know we say this like all the time to anyone who doesn't agree with us, but this time we really mean it. This time, it's for realsies."

Despite this stunning counter-riposte, some factions within the ANC say that the claim could be true.

"It would really all depend on what the claim would mean for us as a people, and as a political party," said chief whip for the ANC Lujius Lamema. "If he is Jesus, then that would make the ANC a kind of religion, and Zuma a kind of de facto God. If that is so, this could have huge repercussions. Firstly, we shouldn't pay taxes - anything else is anti-religious, blasphemic, even - while in His Wisdom you should all still render unto ANCeasar that which is the ANC'sa. Secondly, this means that there is a divine, unknowable reason for Zuma allowing poverty, crime, rape, and vast unemployment to go unchecked despite his unending power and all-seeing greatness. After all, God does work in mysterious ways."

God, Our Heavenly Father, was unwilling to comment on the matter, but he did hint that this rebranding of the much-loved Messiah was long overdue.

"We were getting stagnant, losing followers with our old branding. We needed to shake things up a bit, show our dynamism. A black unbearded communist is about as hectic as we could go. We were thinking a gay Chinese man, but we don't want our religion led by the bad guy from Hangover 3."

Many South African, however, still deny that Melema is our Saviour Come Again, but they are reportedly unworried by threats that they'll go to hell.

"This blerrie country is going to hell anyway," they said, clutching braai tongs.

Agang realises most crucial weaknesses in elections strategy – “too honest, realistic”

Agang had a huge moment of epiphany today, after they realised and publically admitted to South African voters today that their key manifesto, political mandate and elections strategy “contained some huge flaws” and “never really stood a snowball’s chance in hell.”

“Even that metaphor doesn’t do our failure justice,” said Agang spokeperson Jake Mthuli. “Perhaps ‘A Bafana-Bafana’s chance in the World Cup’ is more accurate?”

Following the realisation, Agang had a full press conference outlining their key weaknesses and faults.

“We know exactly what we did wrong,” said Mthuli. “We told the truth. We were too realistic. That’s why we only have two seats in Parliament: we didn’t hand out endless T-shirts and fliers (even on election day, right outside the voting stations), we didn’t give anyone kickbacks or jobs that required our continued political majority rule to stay in existence, we didn’t hand out bags of maize meal to loyal voters.”

However, the endless list of critical flaws in their politicking did not stop there.

“I mean, we were outclassed on all fronts,” admitted a heart-broken and weary Mamphela Ramphele. “We realise now the error of our ways: not once did we whip out our well-thumbed race card; we didn’t emotionally blackmail our electorate; we didn’t send out a rallying call for loyalist patriotism or reactionist ‘this country is going to hell’ voting. Hell, we didn’t even use that much emotional argument or rhetoric. We campaigned honestly. We campaigned honourably. And we lost abysmally.”

In response to the announcement, however, thousands of South Africans have scoffed at the fledgling party, saying its inadequacies were far more deep-seated than those they had so far admitted. Some even questioned their leadership credentials.

“South Africa has gotten used to a certain quality, a very particular standard, of leadership,” said one political analyst. “But Ramphele and her merry band of half-wits are wholly unsuited to government. They aren’t confident or daring in spending public resources of government funds. They don’t act all self-righteous and superior to the others, as if they are the better and incorruptible party."

And to add insult to injury, he said, none of the leadership has a criminal history.

"Zuma knows that to catch a crook you have to hire a crook – which explains our cutting-edge and hugely successful police force - and that to stop corruption you have to first fully understand what corruption is and how far it can penetrate a good person’s soul. He’s like a black South African Professor Snape," he explained. "You can’t fight dark magic if you don’t know what it is, looks like, or how many houses it can build you before the people snap and impeach you. Instead they have meaningless things. Care for the country. Necessary qualifications. Education. A sound political manifesto. How are these things supposed to keep a country running smoothly?”

Another voter added that “she [Ramphele] is vastly inferior to [President Jacob] Zuma.”

“She doesn’t even have more than three wives,” he said, adding that two was “the bare minimum.” “And she declared her assets as like 50 million or something. Zuma’s house alone is creeping up on half a billion rands. Do we really want a poorer president? What will other countries think? That our widespread socioeconomic disparities and prevalent poverty extend all the way to the Big Office? We’ll be the laughing stock of Southern Africa – and that’s saying something.”

In light of the constructive criticism, Agang has sworn to shake up its election strategy, aiming to secure a much more considerable percentage of South African voters.

“Next time, we know,” said Mthuli. “Less honesty, less realism. More emotion. More statistics. More lies. More empty promises. Mandela’s face? Use it! Endless reference to the struggle which was almost two decades ago? Abuse it! We will take more journalists and cartoonists to court for defamation. We will marry more wives, take more money, build bigger houses, drive expensive-er cars with messages about social responsibility on their sides. We now know our flaws. But now we also know how to win; we know what kind of leaders South Africans not just want but need. Christians had better get ready, because if the ANC are right, Jesus is coming in just four very, very short years. Bring it.”

"Taking selfie with stolen ballots also illegal" - ANC

Following much electoral controversy across the country yesterday as millions lined up to cast their vote (after the Independent Electoral Commission warned that taking a self-portrait with your ballot choice using a cellphone is deemed illegal and punishable by jail time), the African National Congress has also stepped forward, reminding its paid inside officials in the IEC that taking similar pictures with stolen ballots was equally illegal.

"If you take a photo of yourself with your democratic right to choose your future President and political representation in the background, that is bad," said ANC spokesperson Eraaz Abillink, "but taking a photograph of yourself with stolen ballots is even worse. It's unforgivable. IEC officials should be above such actions."

The ANC has reminded these wrongdoers and counterrevolutionary sellouts that the punishment is of the highest severity possible.

"If you show the world these boxes of pre-stamped votes, we will cut you off," he said. "No more tenders, no more Uncle Jake getting his RDP house ahead of the queue, no more kickbacks, no more Mercedes SLR with ANC poster about equality and changing socioeconomic disparity on the side. We're serious."

When asked whether these offenders would face equal threat of prison time, he scoffed.

"An ANC guy, go to court or jail? What is this, a Utopian society?"

Meanwhile, the IEC has defended both itself, this ruling, and the question of the election's fairness with staunch obduracy.

"There is a misconception that we're targeting those people who want to make themselves look slightly more socially responsible and intelligent than their usual -nice-looking-meal-photographing, blurry-colour-enhancing-filter-choosing, thousand-hashtag-abusing shallow selves, but this really is not the case," said Head of the Voting Monitoring Program for the IEC Wahch Doug. "We take these crimes seriously for everyone, regardless of how moronic the daily tedium they upload to Facebook is."

And in response to growing concerns and complaints that in some areas the electoral process was unlawfully disrupted, the IEC, despite fears, has declared the elections "mostly free and fair".

"We know that for the past couple of years we've been like the boy who cried wolf and told the world that elections like the Zimbabwe 2008 elections were 'Free and Fair'," said IEC Ballot Official Lyon Touyuu, who paused to laugh so hard that he simultaneously vomited and shat himself, "but this time we're really telling the truth. Really. There was nothing wrong. I mean, a couple of ballot boxes tampered with and a few dozen irregularities here and there, but I think for this part of the world these are acceptable numbers of screw-ups."

ANC hopes ANC campaign trail doesn’t ruin ANC campaign trail

Following the sudden realisation that really the biggest hurdle in their possible future governance of South Africa is their current track record of governance in South Africa, the ANC stated this morning that they really, really hope they haven’t shot themselves in the metaphorical political foot.

“All these other political parties – COPE, the DA, the EFF, IFP, and so on – aren’t really a threat,” said head elections spokeperson Goust Vouwtahs. “Actually, the biggest thing standing in the way of total domination is ourselves.”

In light of this irreparable damage done to the ANC’s reputation by scandals such as Nkandla, the textbooks scandal, Marikana and many, many more, the ANC says it is now considering legal action against its MPs, elected officials and most of itself.

“This level of extreme and gross defamation, character assassination, libel, slander and damage to our good name cannot go unchallenged,” said Vouwtahs. “We must defend our own, even if it means suing them.”

Vouwtahs likened these "counterrevolutionary sell-outs" to a cANCer, sorry, cancer, that needs to be cut out, leaving many politically-minded Urologists very worried indeed.

"If this were my own patient, I would advise against such drastic measures," said one. "Trying to cut out this much cancer is nearly impossible, especially when most of the body is cancer. They'll have maybe three or four people left in remote areas where there isn't enough government funding to skim anything off the top."

Lawyers and Law experts, in contrast, are incredibly excited, and now predict this to be the case of the century.

“It’s going to be massive,” said Senior Advocate Bur de Nofpruf. “We’ll collude with media houses and legal insiders and veil the whole thing as ‘in the public interest’ and get people all riled up on twitter and facebook about how this is really about accountability, transparency and ensuring a solid justice system, even though we all know it's really just grotesque voyeurism by the masses that we exploit so that we can grossly distort the justice system by having it televised 24/7 to the world. The spin-offs will be huge, and god, let’s not even mention the legal fees.”

Despite the fact that such legal action may send a fissure through the ANC, fracturing it as a party, ANC spokespeople are confident they it will not harm their chances of winning.

“Our top education system, our tireless work ensuring that wealth and socioeconomic disparities don't oscillate too much... we think we've done all our can to ensure that our loyal votes make the right decision today. We’re confident that we have damaged education and social cohesion enough to maintain a solid majority of easily swayed voters who would keep voting for us even if we publically executed a basket of kittens in front of a stadium packed with four-year-olds,” said Vouwtahs. “It’s these folks and their endless capacity of hope for a return to the glory days unridden with corruption that keep us going.”

Nkandla report now "least read thing on the planet"

Public Protector Thuli Madonsela is to be honoured with a prestigious global award this week, after her highly-anticipated Nkandla Report, entitled "Secure in Comfort", narrowly beat the Ten Commandments, most parts of Academic readings given to University students and 99.5463% of Facebook statuses and Tweets to become the "Least Read Thing Currently On The Planet."

According to Dr Ihg Noars of the Selection Committee for These Kinds of Awards, Madonsela defeated many thousands of other, equally important documents such as Parliamentary Bills, Legislatural Proposals, critical news reports and extensive newspaper reportage to cinch the coveted trophy.

"Everyone is arguing about it, throwing around the phrases 'Nkandla' this and 'report' that and it generally defines the current South African focus in all aspects of our society - social, political, digital and Office-Water-Cooler-ial," he said to gathered reporters who also hadn't read the full report and just skimmed bits and pieces here and there, early this morning, "but who has actually read it? Not even me."

However, Noars was quick to point out that Madonsela had only narrowly beat her closest competitor - the website where the report is available for full download, www.publicprotector.org/library/investigation_report/2013-14/Final%20Report%2019%20March%202014%20.pdf - to snatch up the honour.

"It was flippen' close," he said.

However, the decision to award Madonsela the covetted title has been heatedly protested and refuted by many others, including Apple, Inc. and those people who hand out fliers for Traditional Healers, gold merchants and cheap plumbing services on the sides of roads and pavements outside stores.

"Years and years of well-documented statistical fact show that it is not the Nkandal report, or even the Public Protector website, that is the least read thing on the planet," said Apple executive CEO Hugh Wurriptof, "but our Legal Terms and Agreements and Conditions of Use documents. How many thousands of times have people just clicked 'Accept' without knowing that they've agreed to, when we want, take all their personal data, possetions and internal organs? Literally millions."

In spite of this, thousands of South Africans and ANC Ministers and Members of Parliament have backed Madonsela's claim, saying that she "utterly deserves this award."

"It is literally my job to read this document so that I can serve the public to the best of my ability," said ANC Minister of Blindly Defending an Untenable Position on the ANC's Mass Pilliaging of State Funds Slip Ery-slohps. "I mean, I've shouted at people in Parliament about how the President is blameless and not guilty, and I don't even know what - if anything - he has been accused of."

Madonsela is expected to be conferred this presitigious award next week.

"I'm happy to receive this award," she said to the gathered audience in a statement that no one will ever take the time to fully read, and instead just rely on news sites like this to get the gist of, "but maybe someone can read it? Pretty please?"

Man with braai tongs delivers State of The Nation address

pic: wikimedia commons

Huge crowds of South Africa citizens gathered at Number 18 Chester Street in Johannesburg yesterday evening, to hear The State of the Nation Address delivered by a man holding braai tongs.

The Address, given by 42-year-old Johannes van Vuuren and starting out as an informal rant to a few friends about "can I tell you what's wrong with this fucking country?", soon developed into one of the most nuanced and insightful critiques of South African zeitgeist and the social, political, financial and cultural implications of modern South Africa.

The speech quickly drew a massive crowd.

"It was incredible," said awed speech attendee Audrey Ence. "Who would have known that a part-time garage mechanic and businessman would have such a deep, considered and profound understanding of South African politics and current affairs?"

The speech, however, was not without its controversial moments, such as when, after six beers and looking over his shoulder to make sure no black people were around and also feeling really comfortable in the privacy of his own home and among friends who didn't have the balls to stand against his bigotted viewpoints, he dropped the K-bomb. Three times.

"Many people were outraged by this," said cunning linguist and head of the London School of Oration and Rhetoric Spee Chiz. "However, it was only to point out the other flaws with this 'fucking baboon country' such as our obsession with political correctness."

"Did you know," Van Vuuren's speech continued, "that I can't even call a gay oke a fag anymore? When I was at school during apartheid it was okay, and now it's all like illegal and stuff. Flip, man. It's, like, supposed to be my Freedoms of Speech, or something. All this fucking LGBTIQ nonsense. We're going to run out of blerrie letters just now."

When asked whether he thought that perhaps his speech was just a hateful drunken rant that he should be ashamed of, he just laughed. 

"It's what everyone is thinking," he said. "It's you blerrie University students, you comment and criticise things too  much, but you don't even see what's right in front of your face." 

When further asked if perhaps many of the problems that South Africa is currently facing, such as rampant government corruption, failure to deliver basic services to a disenfranchised public, and the grand failure of the education system, stem from roots of inequality and social injustice that were carried over post-1994, he scoffed.

"You know, we should just get over the past. I didn't have any trouble getting a job because I studied blerrie hard at the all-white private school my parents paid for and worked blerrie hard at my dad's garage to get where I am today."

Since delivering the epic speech, Van Vuuren has decided to run for office.

"I'll be a hundred times the president Zuma is right now," he promised.

However, this promise has greatly worried political analysts and citizens. 

"When Van Vuuren builds his own Nkandla in Orania or wherever the hell he was brought up, that means he'll spend R20 billion, and not just R200 million," said married couple and Soweto residents Dis and Fran Chised. "That also means that he'll get off 100 times the rape accusations and escape 100 times the Arms Deal probes. We're not sure SA is ready to get that royally fucked up."

SRC to not reach quorum faster than ever

In a move designed to not reach quorum faster than ever before, the Student Representative Council of Rhodes University has decided to reinstate their online voting system for the upcoming SRC elections.

According to Oric Efei, elections officer for the SRC, the SRC is hoping to not reach quorum as quickly as possible this year. Not reaching quorum is a strong Rhodes SRC tradition stemming back to 1942, when Sir Richard Von Notreachingquorumston got students to give up having reasonable representation for their woes and issues for the first time.

"In the past, it's taken us almost a month to not reach quorum," said Efei. "In fact, last year we had to restart the elections, but even then we only didn't reach quorum in three weeks. The current system is just too inefficient. If we want to amass non-votes as quickly as possible, we need to change things."

Some of the proposed changes will be new poster requirements and the old online voting system.

"With these changes, students will now be able to not vote from the comfort of their rooms or the jab labs," said Efei proudly.

The SRC will also be reintroducing their previous non-quorum-reaching strategies from previous elections, such as sending out begging emails deploring students to vote, and going into each dining hall and setting up voting booths.

"Past elections have shown that these two methods have been astounding techniques for not reaching quorum," said Efei. "We'll even be having another grazzle. That shit makes people seriously not care."

Student elections will run later this term, with students being able to pick between 5 underqualified candidates for the 9 positions.

"We've got a great line up of election candidates this year," said elections admin officer Efic Orei, whose name we didn't just make up on the spot. "There's one guy who was the Community Engagement officer at his highschool, and another girl who used to tutor maths for her grade 11 Bridging the Gap society. These are the highest qualifications we've had in years. I mean, even if they'll probably resign a month in."

The SRC is also hoping to not reach quorum as quickly as possibly by introducing a new level of truly awful into the various candidates' election posters.

"We've really stepped up the game this year," said fourth-year design student Lhuvin Taipografie. "MS Word clip-art, low-resolution images, empty catchphrases, awful leading and kerning... these are all prerequisites now."

Awful spelling is also a compulsory prerequisite

SRC President has added his voice to the debate, saying that the sudden appearance of anti-not-reaching-quorum vitriol on the SRC facebook page is unwelcome.

"Every time you vote, a kitten dies," said president Bakhe Sadi. "Just sayin'."

In light of these recent changes, those guys on the SRC facebook page student political analysts now estimate that quorum might definitely not be reached in as little as a day.

"We're really excited to see how this all turns out," said the guy who will probably end up picking our SRC for us, Saleem Badat.

Students can look forward to not complaining about the SRC ever again in a few short weeks.

Fest-goer admits: "I didn't get it."

Pic: http://cashflow-software.net/
images/ConfusedMan.png

Twenty-seven-year-old Hank Middler, an accountant and part-time blogger from Johannesburg, this morning admitted to reporters from Muse and Abuse that he "just didn't understand anything at all about that play, man."

Middler, who asked not to be named for fear of being called a narrow-minded, alliterate prick by his art-loving, hyper-literate, wine-sipping, vegetarian friends, has been at the National Festival of the Arts in Grahamstown for three days now. Having seen seven shows so far, he has reportedly felt the cognitive ennui building up since Friday's showing of a man in woman's clothing hitting a metal pole with an ANC flag.

"At first I watched a naked Swedish man sitting in a glass box dripping blue paint on himself, and then I watched a play in which the actors only barked at each other," he told us with a sigh. "Now this... I just... I just don't get it."

Despite this deep-seated fear of literary inadequacy, psychologists from the Institute of Looking Clever and Profound and Stuff (ILCPS) have said that there are probably hundreds at the Festival suffering the same debilitating mental block.

"What this poor man doesn't realise is that there are many who don't, to quote, 'connect with the innermost themes and central ideas around which the existential critique of modern society is constructed'," said Theatre psychologist Deep Akchopra.

However, he added, there is much festival-goers can do at least look like they did.

"We strongly recommend working on your 'ahs' and 'hmmm' murmurs of agreement or dissent," he said. "Also, you should sagely scratch your philosophical neckstubble. Bonus points if you're a woman with a beard."

Apparently, even what you wear and how you speak can affect it.

"Wear glasses if you can," said the ILCPS. "Pipes and tweed jackets are a plus. if possible, mention "context" or "post-structuralist approaches" and nod sagely whenever someone uses these key words."

The Institute was quick to warn festinos about following their immediate instincts.

"For the love of God, don't say out loud that the art or performance doesn't mean anything and that perhaps people are reading into it a little too deeply."

However, eventually the intertextuality and representation of maternal conflict within the particarchal discourses might become too much, said the Institute. In this case, they should expose themselves to contrasting material.

"Just go watch David Newton or something. That's about as deep as a contact lens."