If you like Bob so much, why don’t you keep him?

Hajira Amla | April 7, 2008

I can see it now – Thabo Mbeki at a Zanu PF rally holding up a large, creased poster which reads: “Mugabe is RIGHT”.  The tail of his shirt hangs out the back of his poor-man’s jacket as he tries to inch closer to his idol, Robert Mugabe.

This is the mental image I see when I close my eyes and listen to Mbeki speak at the press conference in London yesterday. “No, it’s time to wait,” said Mbeki, when asked if now was the time for the international community to intervene in order to prevent chaos in Zimbabwe. “Let’s see the outcome of the election results,” Mbeki stated stoically, as though it were perfectly natural to wait over a week for election results.

If Robert Mugabe is the type of man the leader of a country like South Africa looks up to and defends, then allow me to pack my bags while there is still room on the plane. If Thabo likes him so much, why doesn’t he go and live in Zimbabwe and walk a mile in the shoes of ordinary Zimbabweans – those that can actually afford shoes, that is…

In fact, I think he should take the decrepit octogenarian home with him to South Africa and make ol’ Bob South Africa’s Minister of Finance. Poor old Trevor Manuel just doesn’t understand that emulating the capitalist system of our colonial masters is very coconutty and he should be dragged out into the street and shot immediately for his own good before he infects others with his nasty strain of the Coconut virus.

Bob could indeed make some valuable contributions to the South African state. Our leaders have been doing remarkably well under his tutelage for the past few years but they still need to take a much bolder stance on land distribution, foreign-owned companies and re-inventing the rand. He also needs a good protégé on White/Briton/Westerner-bashing speeches – I’d personally recommend Zuma for this prestigious role.

South Africa and Zimbabwe are inextricably linked by the supporting role Zimbabweans played in the struggle against apartheid rule. However, a decade or so after the euphoria has faded, words like “democracy” and “the will of the people” hold as little weight as they did during the apartheid regime. The fact that the cat has got Mbeki’s toungue and hidden it under the couch in a situation where democracy and the well-being of an entire country are at stake is an indication of how ready we are for Bob to take the reins here in South Africa. Viva Mugabe, viva…