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.

American anti-terrorism measures stop terrorist

After years of systematic discrimination scrutiny, the United States Department of Counter-Terrorism has finally caught a terrorist.

John McCorrin, whom the media have dubbed Mohammed Al Shazir Al-Habar Muhammed Mahalamoud, was caught trying to enter the country yesterday afternoon with almost 1 kilogram of explosives. 

"The man was apprehended at Los Angeles airport with a bag of explosives in his luggage," said DCT spokesperson Miss Repree Zentation. "We can neither confirm nor deny yet whether or not the material was nuclear, but we can tell you that they all came in packages with frightening codenames."

Among the explosives found were small bombs codenamed "Roman Candles".
 
"We also found a small amount of projectname 'Tom Thumbs' and a few insidious-sounding 'Birthday Sparklers'. While we're not sure of the significance of these names, we can only assume they have something to do with rampant Islamic militant violence and democracy-hating right-wing religious facism,"  said Zentation.

Their suspicions were first raised when an alert came through on their global telecommunications monitoring network. According to senior analysts, the message sent between Mahalamoud and an as-yet unnamed accomplice was spine-tinglingly chilling. 

"I've got everything we need to finish off tomorrow night with a bang," the message read. "We're going to drop a lot of jaws with our little show. I'll see you soon, brother. Allah hu Akbar."

The system, which has been coded to pick up keywords like "bomb", "terrorist", "nuclear" and "muslim", been illegally monitoring calls, smses, and emails since before 2001. According to head of the project, Ian Ternet, this is the first time the system has picked up a media-branded confirmed terrorist.

"We usually a lot of false pings, like from any message talking about basically any video, internet post, movie or television show that has a muslim in it. We also get a lot of false hits from Star Wars," said Ternet.
 

Admiral Ackbar's name is often confused with praise to Allah, says Ternet

"You know, movies show us that terrorist carry around AK-47s, have turbans and scowling dark faces and inevitably scream "allah who allackbar" in crowded airports. It turns out that this isn't really the case all the time," said LAX arresting officer Ray Sist.

According to Sist, Mahalamoud almost snuck by airport staff by using an extremely cunning disguise. "To the untrained eye, he almost looked like an innocent, law-abiding citizen: no giant beard, no burkha, nothing. He almost got away," said Sist.

It was only after frisking twenty men who didn't have names like "Brett", "Kyle" and "Dylan" that their suspicions were aroused. "He had a very funny accent," said Sist. According to current security policy, funny accents are ground enough for a full cavity search.

However, Mahalamoud has been quick to defend himself. 

"I'm not a terrorist, for pete's sakes! I'm an architect living in Florida!" he said in an interview with those bastards from the loose, bleeding-heart, America-hating liberal leftist press.

Mahalamoud is expected to go on trial next month, with movie production for the series of events already underway. The movie, entitled "America fucks up another terrorist, booya" and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris and Sylvester Stallone, will hit god-fearing, gun-loving cinemas in early May.

Admiral Ackbar's name is often confused with praise to Allah, says Ternet