SA Politics - Pure Magic

The best magicians are those that have mastered the art of deception. They are professionals at making you see only what they want you too see. Sure, there are those musicians who use very cool gadgets that do all the work for them, but lets face it, the only magic tricks we really enjoy are those that we can't possible even begin to figure out which are generally those that involve more skill!

A couple years ago when I was in London I was lucky enough to speak to a magician. Now, I have no clue whether he is a very good magician or not, but he informed me that the trick to being a magician is being able to make people focus on one hand while the other hand sneakily conjours up "magic."

Pure slight of hand...

This is why the idea of a semi-naked assistant works so well. It keeps your eyes focused on one thing when actually the real magic trick is happening somewhere else.

Now, call me crazy, but isn't that exactly what is happening in South African politics? I hate to bring up "The Spear" again (I know we're all getting sick of it) but it is such a classic example of South African magic. It has caused a major public outcry with two main opponents. One group believing that it the painting is a good representation of our president and believe that he had it coming, after all a man who has more wives at one time than any "normal" man could have in his entire life, a man who has been accused publicly of rape and a man who has admitted to knowingly having unprotected sex with an HIV positive woman deserves to be depicted as a "philandering womanizer."

The other group believes that it is highly indecent and unjust. This group believes that no matter what our president does in his personal life, he is still our leader and should be treated with a certain level of respect and dignity.

And South Africans are a HIGHLY passionate nation. When we truly believe in something we ensure that everybody knows where we stand on the topic. And what better way than to create a distraction than to add a rather controversial topic to a society that is just waiting to explode. Because South Africa is a ticking bomb. We are looking for something to take our frustrations out on and jump at any possible opportunity!

Think about it, a rather average painting dipicting our president in a negative way? It happens at least once a month! When was the last time you saw a Zapiro cartoon of the president that didn't depict him in a negative light? So really, is this topic that big a deal?

Well, no, it wouldn't have been if the ANC hadn't cause such a big fuss about it.

And one has to ask why they did it? My theory is that while we were all worrying about some painting there was something far more sinister going on in the other hand. And I'm affraid to say is, but we fell for it hook, line and sinker!

However, it did help, because now that we've blown off a bit of steam we won't have to worry about that bomb expolding for some time still. I just have a feeling that we (the youth of today) are going to have to clean up the mess once it does explode.

So, for now atleast, the masses are calm. We have eaten our cake and we have seen our circus and now it is time to sleep. Until morning the government can go back to stealing and raping our country for all that it's worth.