Historic protest “actually pretty damn boring”, says protester

Pic by M de Klerk

Disappointment abounds today, after protesters – who turned out in their hundreds expecting to face tear gas, stun grenades and the terrifying history of brutality of the South African Police Service – realised that historic, nation-changing protests are far more peaceful and boring than their media feeds make them seem.

“What’s even the damn point in being here?” said embittered protester Molly Tov, altering her placard to read ‘Ban stun grenades – but come on, just use one so I can see what it’s all about’.

“I’ve seen dozens of hours of video of flashbang grenades, chemical watercannons that drive you crazy with itching, and rubber bullets; I’ve read countless articles outlining the ceaseless street violence, racial tensions, and rampant vandalism. Where is all this stuff? All I've seen today is just a peaceful protest demanding a long-overdue, positive change for the future. I mean, WTF is this kak?”

Protests mill around awkwardly waiting for the first
stun grenade to be thrown like in their
Twitter feeds.
Pic: M de Klerk

Other protesters have agreed.

“A few days ago I was so excited to do my bit: you know, stand against the exploitative capitalist system, maybe march a bit, not have to hand in my Economics essay that’s due later today,” said post-graduate Economics student Reeva Lution. “I turned on the news on TV and all I saw was endless replayed footage and in-studio analysts saying ‘blerrie students looting and destroying campus and spraying blerrie graffiti everywhere’. And then I get here and all it is boring hours of standing peacefully by barricades, turning cars away, calmly explaining our agenda to passers-by. I didn’t even get beaten to a pulp or wrongfully arrested. What kind of protest is this?”

However, some students say they might know the reason for such counter-intuitive events.

“I’m busy dusting off my application for NMMU and UCT,” said second-year Anthropology student, Emma Pee. “That way I can get a decent education AND have better struggle credentials from taking a smoke grenade to the back of the head.”

Whatever the controversy, all protesters can agree that the protest action shows how South Africa is transforming into an enviable nation of peace and progress.

“Let’s just think about what we’ve accomplished this week: the SAPS didn’t murder hundreds of civilians, Blade Nzimande actually fucking did something for a change, and students realised that people protesting to make their fees cheaper isn’t something they should bitch about on Twitter,” said the MIPMustFall movement in a statement this morning.

"Now we just have to get our protest movement to focus on the things that truly hurt and disadvantage all university students: Tuesday's Braised Club Steak in the Dining Hall. That shit needs to fall, ASAP.

Government begins campaign to improve graffiti

Bad graffiti and the defacement of public property has long been a stain on our society, but finally the Department of Education is striking back. Today, the Minister of Education has announced a much-needed injection of almost 3 billion Rand into South African schools, aimed at improving students’ grammar and punctuation so that, “at the very least, our schools will be vandalised and defaced in an educated and correctly-spelled manner.”

“Have you seen some of our students’ tags and ‘art’?” asked the Minister at a press conference in Pretoria. “I mean, Jake waz heer? Blu Klan Gang 4 lyf? Have we so failed our children that they can’t even deface public property in a respectable, grammatically sound way? They say ‘fuk da police’, but why? We hope that this new boost will enable our children to at least have an empirically-based and nuanced critique of our problematic police force and why, exactly, we should ‘fuk’ them.”

The cash boost follows on the heels of a damning study commissioned by the Institute of Public Art, which recently found that a “made-up but very high” percentage of gang-affiliated graffiti contained innumerable spelling, grammar and punctuation errors.

“While this widespread creativity and love of art is a sign of promise in the next generation,” said the sixty-page report, “their inability to differentiate between ‘to’, ‘too’ and ‘two’, or ‘your’ and ‘you’re’, or even ‘were’, ‘we’re’ and ‘where’, is something that needs to be immediately addressed.”

This isn't the first time South African education has been drastically altered to suit contemporary trends, and despite government officials remaining obstinate that "a Matric isn't easy", teachers have embraced the new introductions.

“The system of basic education is failing many thousands of little obnoxious shits I’m legally obliged to call ‘students’,” said a High School maths teacher in Kwazulu-Natal. “If we don’t do something now, we’ll forever be doomed to see ‘fuck’ spelt without the ‘c’ on our trains, buildings and public spaces.”

The new educational fund is also aimed at improving students’ limited or incorrect knowledge of human anatomy as depicted in erroneous and crude tags.

“Most graffiti pictures of genitalia are not anatomically correct,” said one biology teacher. “For example, most crudely sprayed penises on industrial buildings disregard the usual kinks, bends and demographically relevant size proportions of the average male; the same can be said for roughly painted breasts or hastily tagged vaginas. They are just in no way indicative of real breasts, and don’t convey even half the complexity or sophisticated anatomical structures of the female reproductive organs.”

Government opinion remains divided on the matter, with some claiming that "education is not in a crisis in South Africa" and others admitting that education in South Africa would be "a terrible idea", but at the end of the day, the decision has excited great number of school kids.

“I’ve already been working on a new series of tags,” said a grade-ten learner. “I think it’s gonna blow people away.”

Artists depiction: before education program.

Artist's depiction: after education program.

Pics: Grafitti, Matthew de Klerk. Wall (both edits): Creative Commons.