Nkandla is totally justified and necessary

Police Minister finds that Zuma does not have to pay back any money for the “security upgrades” to his luxury hotel in KwaZulu Natal Province. What do we make of these s-Nkdandla-lous developments? Well, Guest Writer Johan Van Eksteen knows: that they’re totally justified and necessary, and that they don’t even begin to scratch the surface of the upgrades Zuma still needs.

Pic: John A Forbes from http://www.panoramio.com/photo/84617082
(Attribution; Share-alike license)

My friends, we’ve all heard the news. We’re enraged. We’re furious. How could the Minister of Police – after everything, after the Public Protector’s report, after Parliamentary ruckuses and fights, after all the hundreds of newspaper articles – possibly say that Zuma doesn’t have to pay back anything of the near half a billion rand he spent on his private residence?

Well, the answer is simple: he’s right.

The (correctly arguing) Minister rightfully states that Zuma needs a security amphitheatre – for dignitaries to meet him, and as a security meeting point. If, by chance, the amphitheatre is used for parties or theatrical productions of musical performances, does this at all diminish the security aspect of this addition? If you built a fortress, and then everyone used it for Kurt Darren concerts, would that make it any less of a fortress? No.

The same goes for the installed Security chicken coops and Security cattle kraals. Having been nudged semi-violently by a cow once, I personally know how important it is to keep a barrier between poor defenceless humans – at the whim of these ultimately superior bovine predators, since all we have are better brains, opposable thumbs, critical reasoning and access to tools – and the deadly, bloodthirsty species of cattle and poultry. Those peckers can be blerrie dangerous.

And then we have the security firepool. In this technologically unadvanced day and age, where we don’t have dedicated firefighting services and where we understand nothing about the Dark and Mysterious Hidden Magicks of Fire, how could Zuma possibly defend himself against an out-of-control braai fire? In fact, scientists say that the only reason we add chlorine to our swimming pools is because it’s an excellent flame retardant. Skeptical? Well, I ask you, have you ever seen water that is burning? Of course you haven’t. You’re not Adele.

Friends, all of these upgrades in the Pesky Protectorate’s report are absolutely vital. And what’s more, they are just the first in many upgrades Zuma not only needs, but deserves.

All these additions have been carefully thought out, all aimed at letting Jacob Zuma live in peace, prosperity and, most importantly, safety with his small family of, like, only 100 people. After all, doesn’t the most hated president of our time need this extra protection?

Think about all that he’s done in the past couple of years, and it makes total sense. When it comes to protecting the life and safety of someone as globally reviled as Zuma, who can really say that any safety precaution is an unnecessary extravagance?

I mean, I talk about racism and sexism and misogyny and other non-existent topics once or twice, and I get death threats. Can you imagine what the father of South Africa 2015 must get? Can you imagine how many threats and embittered hate you must rack up if you, oh, I don’t know, keep Angie Motshegka as Minister of Basic Education, or have Blade “#StudentsMustFall” Nzimande as Minister for Tertiary Education? Can you imagine the scorn and contempt that must be heaped on you if you were to go into Parliament and laugh, out loud, at an entire country when they say you’re being a greedy fuck?

No, friends – he needs all of these upgrades, and more. For his own good.

That’s why the rooms are equipped with Security Dolby 3.0 Sound Systems from Sennheiser: to ensure that security warnings can be broadcast around the various mansions, in full surround sound so that no one will underestimate the urgency of the emergency. Of course, without the necessary backup security ultra-HD 4x-resolution Samsung 108-inch TVs in every room, this measure is just not useful or adequate.

Then there’s the Security Pub and grill. This secure location comes equipped with security-expert-formulated liquids all scientifically tested to ensure the security of our president and his families, including but not limited to Security Johnny Walker Blue, DEFCON 1 Glenfiddich, and, of course, NATIONAL EMERGENCY Moët & Chandon Bi Centenary Cuvée Dry Imperial 1943. Add this to an adjoining security kitchen, with food rated five stars in both taste and security, and you can see how this isn’t about a mad agenda of self-serving greed, nor is it an abuse of an uncontrolled system of rampant spending.

And in extreme cases, Zuma and his extended entourage will need a fleet of security vehicles – and these will need to be fast to get away from potential threats. A Security Maserati, perhaps, or a Security Bugatti Veyron, so that they can escape danger to their Security G9 Private Jet.

And finally, in case that the whole country realises his true nature and goes to hell, Zuma will need a safe and secure location to lay low while the danger blows over: a Security Safemansion, on a Security Private Island in the Security Bahamas.

You know, just as long as it's as far as possible from the President's Office of The Republic of South Africa.

Johan is a guest columnist at Muse and Abuse. Widely renowned for his non-nonsense approach to controversial topics, Johan shines a blinding light of truth on subjects like the hideous scourge of immigration, why white people should vote ANC, why Blackface isn't the real racist problem in SA, and how Black Privilege is an ugly truth that no one wants to admit. He also thinks gay marriage should have been outlawed years ago.

Pic of Kraal: Creative-commons licence from GovernmentZA, Flickr (GCIS).
Pic of Zuma from Official SA Govt Website.

Peace, security would “cripple” South African economy

Economic and financial experts have today blasted various religious and political parties’ calls for “peace and non-violence between South Africans and an end to rampant theft, rape and murder rates”, saying that such an outcome would “utterly devastate” the South African economy.

“South Africa does have massive multi-million rand industries like agriculture and mining to buff up its GDP,” said Editor of The Financial Times magazine Ray Zintaxes, “but our biggest industry by far is the multi-billion-rand-a-year industry centred mostly on paranoid white people and combating crime. Without crime, our economy would fall to shambles.”

Many other experts and politicians have agreed with this assessment, saying that the calls for peace and safety for all in South Africa are “too rash, too hasty [and] totally short sighted.”

“If we look at projects like Nkandla, you can easily see how the economy would be affected,” said ANC spokesperson, Chi Fwip. “If Zuma didn’t fear for his life and safety, hundreds of security contractors, many of them my personal friends and family, would be homeless, broke, unemployed and destitute. We need crime now more than ever.”

Fwip added that without the constant fear of murder, rape, robbery, assault, farm killings, mugging, gang violence, grand theft auto and petty larceny, many thousands of South Africans would immediately lose their jobs as policemen, car guards, security guards, night-watchmen, private security company employees and security installation and maintenance professionals.

“It would decimate employment,” said Fwip. “And since ‘decimate’ means ‘to reduce by a tenth’ it would probably decimate it more than once.”

Fwip added that crime was the only source of income for many poor families and crack addicts in South Africa.

“Without crime, we’re taking away their only form of livelihood,” he said. “Every time a robber breaks into a house and stabs or shoots someone, he is creating employment and wealth not just for himself, but also for police officers, doctors, hospitals, funeral directors and grave diggers. You can see how such a call would create a domino-effect of havoc for our economy.”

This not the first bit of controversy to be raised about South African crime, however, as our Police Services, the SAPS, have been criticised and questioned time and time again, with theorists alternately saying South Africa would be a better place without them or defending the SAPS as “misrepresented by a biased, unfair media”.

Academics are now calling for more “thought and discourse” on the issue before making such rash calls.

“This whole problem is more complex than merely ‘oh, please stop raping and killing and stealing’,” said Securityologist at the Beijing University School of Security Studies, Shu Tsatukyl. “Without crime, there would be no police, and without Police around there would be no one left around to stop criminals. It would be hell. Like a South African Catch-22, but with fewer long words.”

“You are utterly boring” – NSA

After decades of bugging, phone- and wire-tapping, covert surveillance, back-door email hacking and in-depth scrutiny of all your personal and private data, the United States National Security Agency has arrived at the absolutely certain conclusion that you are “unremarkable, undangerous, and in all likelihood destined to have no real meaningful or noticeable bearing or impact on the general course of human history whatsoever.”

“If you look at the data, at just a single glance, you might be lead to thinking that you are just another mediocre, basically negligible example of the human race,” said Lead Commissioner of the NSA operations, Sir Vey Lance, “and actually you’d be 100% correct.”

He went on to add that “nothing about you at all sounds like someone who would make the history books.

“Seriously. I know the media likes to kick up a huge scare about terrorists and bombs and threats and one never knowing who is good and who is bad, but in all likelihood you’ll just go on living your normal boring life, go on posting meaningless irrevelencies on your normal boring facebook wall, have normal boring children with a normal boring wife, and then die," he said with a noncommittal shrug. "Probably at an average age of a disease normal to your age and demographic – like cancer, or heart failure.”

Upon hearing the news US President Barack Obama said that he was “very pleased” with the news, but “kinda knew all along where this investigation was going.”

“The NSA and the billions of dollars we give it every year have done an incredible, time-consuming and ultimately foregone-conclusion piece of work,” he said pretending to read the words off a piece of paper at the White House this afternoon. “Countless hours have been slogged out so that the American people can rest assured that you’re not really worth paying attention to, and certainly not in any way a potential or credible threat to national security.”

However, many critics have refuted the claims as “hasty” and “sorely mistaken”.

“We have looked at the data and disagree entirely,” said chief critics of the study Your Mom and Your Dad. “You are special,” read the joint statement. “Special to us.”

Meanwhile, the NSA have said they will continue monitoring your email “just in case”.

“Who knows what a terrorist really looks like? Certainly not us,” said Lance. “We’re not going to take the chance.”

Muse and Abuse donates laptop, hard drives, passports to local charity

In a surprise move at the Thursday 2O March Milner Street giveaway charity bonanza, held during broad daylight at exactly 1:10pm, Muse and Abuse's chief writer, reporter and Editor Matthew "Not actually that funny" de Klerk donated most of his prized possessions, including keys, a watch, a laptop and three hard disks containing the only backups of his four years of University work, newspaper articles and personal writing, music and photographs, to two men (who clearly wished to remain anonymous) from a Charity for struggling Probably Ex Convicts.

Muse and Abuse now joins over 400 other donors since January of this year who have donated their laptops, wallets, iPods, mobile phones, cash, and other easily-hockable and valuable items to similar charities in Grahamstown. Like Muse and Abuse, many of these donors also stored the charity donations in locked, secured and alarmed houses shortly before the handover.

The recipients of the items were endlessly happy.

"We could not be more pleased," they said probably over a beer gloating to friends at the ease of the charity giveaway. "Even though we probably live in squalor or desperate socioeconomic circumstances that force us to accept such donations."

The Charity Drive, which probably took no more than a few minutes, was joined several minutes later by members of both the Grahamstown South African Police Service and Hi-Tech Security, who called the event, "Business as usual", before adding that there was "an almost zero percent chance" that the satisfied customers would bring the items back for a refund or whatever.

"Students are just so generous and giving in our town," said Captain Howard Ahrwelukin and Sergeant Noah Tardat-Hall.

De Klerk, however, was just glad he could do his part.

"Most people might think me bitter," said the esteemed writer and philanthropist. "Most people would think me angry. Most people would think me disappointed. And in fact, most people would be absolutely fucking correct."

Those looking to make a donation should adopt a laissez-faire attitude toward personal security, or live on Milner Street.