TO the barometer, then, where a tapping of the glass reveals that today will be best spent in a huddle around the fireplace at the Mahogany Ridge. It'll be rough out there, with heavy rains, icy temperatures, gale-force winds and a strong possibility of air-borne excrement as the latest trend in political protest takes hold.
It would appear that, despite widespread revulsion and official condemnation from the ruling party and their allies, moves to strew the contents of chemical toilets about the place will continue from certain hindquarters of the ANC Youth League (as one of the wags here at the bar suggested several times this week) as they press on with their campaign to break down law and ordure in Cape Town and make the province ungovernable.
The latest incident of flung dung took place on Thursday evening, according to a tweet from Premier Helen Zille: "The ANCYL [and] the ANC ward councillor arrived at DA councillor Patrick Ngqu's house in Kosovo, Philippi, and tried to throw faeces inside."
This followed two earlier brown-stuffings, if I may call it that; on Monday buckets were emptied on the steps of the provincial legislature and, the next day, a meeting in Khayelitsha was slopped, with Zille's car, a bus and the hall itself getting the treatment.
The protests have had a marked effect on the standard of chatter at the Ridge. The foecal went viral, as it were, much like rogue bacillae among package tourists in Egypt. No depths were left unplumbed in the search of a turn of phrase that would have reduced even the stoutest of schoolboys to a tittering, wet-pants wreck. It started with supposedly faecile punning and went south after that most pronto.
Despite the general air of queasiness, we forced ourselves to endure a brief lecture from the Ridge's resident child psychology major, who pointed to the protestors' obvious immaturity and ventured that it was due to poor potty training rather than a legacy of what is now fashionably known as apartheid colonialism.
That may well be the case, but as far as Bongile Zanazo and Mnyamezeli Mdwaba were concerned . . . well, just stay the hell away from here. Or downwind, at the very least. These are the two ANCYL members who were arrested and appeared in court in connection with Tuesday's protest.
Now, I'm fully aware that charges against Mdwaba have been withdrawn, and that Zanazo, who's out on R500 bail, has yet to plead in this matter. But, you know, innocent or guilty, once a man goes down that road and starts playing with crap, well, the stuff just sticks.
The same must be said for ANC councillor Loyiso Nkohla, who seems to be the youth leaguer behind the brown-stuffings. Dude, what the hey? You want a career in politics? Who's going to shake your hand now? You're never going to be asked about policy, only personal hygiene. Still, look on the bright side. Nicknames like Terror, Stalin, Hitler and Tokyo are quite common with revolutionaries engaged in the struggle for economic freedom. But Stinky? It's yours, and yours alone.
Stinky's adamant that he's going to carry on with his campaign for as long as the city rolls out the portable toilets rather than provide residents with fixed thrones - even if it means defying the ANC. As he told the Cape Times: "I will continue to lead in the front . . . and let it be if I lose my council seat." Which is such an interesting soundbite it should be printed on toilet rolls.
There is, it must be said, nothing new in poo. The "dirty protest" - smearing the contents of chamber pots on their cell walls - was a tactic devised by Provisional Irish Republican Army and Irish National Liberation Army prisoners in the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland in the late 1970s in an attempt to bring about a change in prison conditions. The tactic eventually gave way to the 1981 hunger strike in which the IRA's Bobby Sands and nine other prisoners had starved themselves to death.
But, back to the point, and that is this: waste management. Here it must be said that the ANC can get its act together when it wants to. Consider Cederberg mayor Jonas White's expulsion from the ruling party for, among other offences, sending his deputy, Lorna Scheepers, a picture of his privates in a condition best described as proud and adorned with whipped cream and a single strawberry. In addition to being banned from the party for five years, a disciplinary committee has ruled that he be removed as mayor at the next council meeting.
Whipped cream and a strawberry? So much more tasteful than that other business.
This article first appeared in the Weekend Argus.
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