EDINBURGH — Grey hair is very fashionable these days, so much so that young women are paying huge sums to convert their radiant tresses to washed out platinums. But grey hair is not a good idea at work in an era in which ageism rules, which is why so many of us spend small sums keeping a check on our regrowth. However, you can’t wake up one day and suddenly change your hair colour. People will notice. The secret of age is to make your youthful appearance appear natural. This is a lesson Fikile Mbalula, former minister of police who has been accused of being too close to the Guptas, must learn, reckons Simon Lincoln Reader, who says what many might be pondering but are too polite to ask in public: Why, Fikile Mbalula, did you wait so long to dye your hair black? It’s a valid point: not so long ago Mbalula was the silver fox about town; now he looks a bit like he’s trying to style it like Jussie Smollett – whose behaviour this week has also come under the SLR spotlight. – Jackie Cameron
By Simon Lincoln Reader*
Monday
Always liked Rahm Emanuel. Ruthless little bastard. Chicago’s Mayor and Barack Obama’s former Chief of Staff isn’t happy. He’s not alone.
Charges against the homosexual black actor Jussie Smollett were binned this week, the case files sealed. Jussie was accused of faking a racist, homophobic attack, the details of which are so amateur they don’t warrant repetition. But left-wing politicians, activists and large sections of the media, united in their loathing of Donald Trump, initially seized upon the incident, describing it as a “hate crime”.
Now the dude is free and Rahm is furious. Not only is his acquittal an insult to the city’s cops, but in the context of those who leapt to Jussie’s defence, it humiliates the term “white privilege”, and it’s craven, reckless and destructive popularity.
Because Jussie has also gone and done a himself a privilege – a massive “progressive privilege” if you like, blown holes in the legitimate criticism and suspicion of people like Jared Kushner – an unqualified clown parachuted into the heart of American foreign policy – and the work of The Marshall Project, who for years have been trying to emphasise the state of disproportionate prosecutions between races.
It would be interesting to hear how that piece of work Eusebius explains this one to his husband.
Tuesday
Why Britain needs another referendum.
I, like most South Africans living in the UK (I think), hoped the UK would remain in the European Union in 2016. Although the result indicated a deep and complex divide, those who voted to remain dismissed it as “racist”, “evidence of Russian interference” or even “the dreams of imperial history”.
These excuses were coupled to media forces. The Observer, through a peripatetic activist masquerading as a journalist called Carole Cadwalladr, The Independent, The Evening Standard and most of the other blue-tick verified media startups seeking to exploit the vulnerability of millennials formed the basis of the resistance, casting a series of patently false theories. But in an impressively short period the campaign to revoke Article 50 and for the UK to remain in the EU was established.
So, great: forcing Britain to remain would protect the interests of South Africans in the UK, especially those employed by financial services, who own property or benefit from freedom of movement. Whatever the basis of the resistance, it doesn’t matter.
Wednesday
Except it does. The foundations of these excuses are shaky, uncorroborated, perpetually subjected to “corrections” – and the potential consequence of repeating them profound. Because popularity trumps the pursuit of truth, the media supporting the case for the UK to remain has made no real effort to explore the origins of the divide.
Although I do not have all the answers, I suspect some of them can be found in David Goodhart’s “The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics”. David is among a small minority of credible journalists who sought the truth, ugly as it may appear to some. In addition to his findings, there was the financial crisis, politician’s expenses scandal of 2009 and the obscure layering of Brussels, its fondness for mischievous phrases such as “pooled sovereignty”.
As much as it will (justifiably) enrage supporters of the leave campaign, a three-option referendum (Borda count), would be an appropriate means of testing the allegations of interference suggested by the resistance. A) NO DEAL; B) DEAL and; C) REMAIN could be printed on the ballot sheet, with voters asked to determine popularity of the options by marking 1, 2 or 3 next to their preference (1 being the most popular). I agree with remain supporters that democracy is not motionless – and another referendum does qualify as democratic (however inappropriate).
And in the unlikely event remain were to win, there is some benefit: the poisonous conjecture projected by so many of its high-profile supporters – not a single one of whom has made any effort to understand why it happened – would possibly cease.
Thursday
Platitudes. That’s the response of journalists writing for the Daily Maverick or Tiso Blackstar in examining the prospects of the Capitalist Party of South Africa (ZACP). These “ohh-kyk-vir-my-ek-is-so-
But the results of the poll Biznews conducted where the ZACP came third – barely two weeks after its launch – will be encouraging for the party, and for the rest of us who can think for ourselves… unlike those minds arrested by the ghosts of their former, unscrupulous professors.
Friday
I was not possessed of the kind of patience required to entertain Fikile Mbalula grunting his way through a procession of contradictions at his appearance at the Zondo Commission. But I did feel, upon reflection, that an important question was not asked, namely: why did you wait over a decade post your Presidency of the ANC Youth League to dye your hair black?
- Simon Lincoln Reader lives in London.Â