OUT TO LUNCH

I spent most of last week at the excellent Kruger Gate Hotel watching animals kill other animals. It wasn’t all about blood of course and there were huge herds of elephants with tiny three week old babies. We ticked off the big five in the first few hours of the morning drive. There are masses of buffalo thronging around the Kruger Gate and I’m always reminded of what my late friend James Greener used to say about buffalo…..they stare at you with an expression that says “you owe me money”.

Having ‘done’ the big five we then spotted a cluster of sable antelope which delighted my guide and then, towards the end of the morning drive, we spotted white backed vultures circling in the sky and charged off to discover the aftermath of a wild dog kill. By the time we arrived it was hard to tell what it might have been but a large kudu seems likely. The hyenas were already moving in to finish off the remains as five bloodied and sated wild dogs lay nearby panting on the ground with a wake of vultures awaiting their turn at the lunch table.

The Kruger Gate Hotel has many things to recommend it. The staff are very friendly and helpful, the food is excellent, the rooms live up to their luxury status and there is an infinity pool overlooking the Sabie River right next to a well stocked bar. I flew out of Cape Town last week when the temperature was around 10C and arrived at Skukuza to 37C so a cool draught Stella on arrival was essential. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___

One of the other thoughtful guest additions at Kruger Gate is excellent free Wi-Fi connectivity which works throughout the hotel. There are also power points strategically placed at viewing decks so it’s quite possible to plug your laptop or cell phone in and connect to the internet while watching animals moving around below. Why would you want to is the obvious question but I was behind with the news and didn’t want to be cooped up in my room (lovely thought it was) so I took my iPhone and charger cable down to the Pool Bar, plugged in and caught up with the news of the day.

To my amazement there was only one story dominating what we affectionately call the ‘legacy media’ and social media. It was the appointment of Roman Cabanac as John Steenhuisen’s chief of staff at the Min of Agriculture. The swearing in of highly dubious members of the MK-Pox party hardly featured. There was a small mention of our Minister of Justice buying a coffee shop in Sandton with R500 000 of ill-gotten VBS money (you couldn’t make this stuff up) plus a hint of a much needed clean up in Joburg ahead of the All Blacks game on Saturday. But none of these came close to the massive and widespread coverage of Roman Cabanac.

The lefty bedwetters went crazy. The smug and the sanctimonious kicked it all off on August 26th on X (formerly Twitter) with the mainstream media newsrooms telling staff to drop all other stories and comb the archives for anything that could possibly be damaging for Cabanac’s reputation.

Normally sane voices expressed the opinion that John Steenhuisen must have been unaware that his new appointment regularly burned crosses at Zoo Lake, liked to be known as the Imperial Wizard and was frequently seen at coffee shops in Tyrone Avenue wearing long flowing white robes and a pillow case with eye holes cut into it.

By the time Rebecca Davis had cobbled together a smear piece for Daily Maverick we knew all about Roman Cabanac. I had been thinking about subscribing to the Daily Maverick but I don’t think I’ll bother now. Rebecca used to be known as ‘Becky Snowflake’ about ten years ago and her (and the Daily Maverick’s) hatred of anything to do with the Democratic Alliance is well documented.

Roman Cabanac is described as an ‘alt-right bro podcaster’ which sounds as though it’s meant to be really bad but will mean nothing to most people. I have no idea what ‘alt-right’ means. Is it left of right or right of right or just right with some alternate modifications? Nobody seems too sure but to the lefty bedwetters whatever it is, it’s really bad.

Digging further it was discovered that Cabanac had tweeted some outrageous views (some might say truths) in the past and liked guns. Indeed, the DM article featured a couple of shots of Roman toting some heavy weaponry; no doubt before setting out on a killing spree at his nearest shopping mall.

I have never read so much crap about anyone (including crap about myself) as I have about Roman Cabanac.

So let me come clean and say that I know the man and count him as a valued friend. I am delighted that he has been offered this position by John Steenhuisen and am confident that the selection process would have been thorough. I doubt if Roman would have accepted the job if he didn’t think he was up to the task.

I met Roman probably about fifteen years ago when we were both members of the Rand Club. You know, that colonial construct where we racist white supremacist males could gather and enjoy our toxic masculinity in the privacy of our own luxurious surroundings. Except that we couldn’t because the club accepted female members and had no colour bar. Indeed, if I recall correctly, Tokyo Sexwale had generously contributed to the refurbishing of one of the function rooms.

I was either still writing the Out to Lunch column for the Sunday Times or had just been sacked but Roman and I struck up a friendship and realised that we had very similar concerns for the country we both loved. I am confident that he didn’t agree with everything I said or wrote and I’m sure I extended the same courtesy to him. However, we both believed in freedom of speech and freedom of expression. When he started the ‘Renegade Report’ with Jonathan Witt the clue was surely in the name and unless you were blindingly stupid you would have realised that tongues were firmly in cheeks.

Anybody starting a podcast has my admiration. To start with, you have to have enough discipline to be able to produce a regular show if you are going to draw in subscribers. And you have to be topical and offer the punter something the regular media don’t offer which means you need to raise hackles from time to time. It’s not for wimps.

The most surprising and disturbing thing to me though is that the character assassinations have come from places like the SA Institute of Race Relations; an organisation that used to defend freedom of speech but now seemingly doesn’t. Even more disgusting is that one of those IRR Orcs needed money for a medical procedure in his more impecunious days and Roman Cabanac was one of those who helped raise funds.

The Daily Maverick piece goes all out to smear Roman Cabanac in as vicious a way as possible. Rebecca Davis even casts doubt on his qualifications:

“Steenhuisen has defended the appointment of Roman Cabanac on the grounds of Cabanac’s legal experience, although it is unclear if Cabanac has completed his law articles. But the reality is that Cabanac is notoriously one of the most divisive, race-baiting voices on local social media – a fact of which Steenhuisen cannot possibly claim to be unaware. “

She then accuses him of “frantically deleting tweets” as if Cabanac is naive enough to think that the saddos who specialise in online archeological digs won’t find something.

As far as the listing of his “inflammatory statements” are concerned they are no more inflammatory than anything that spews out of the mouths of Malema, Hlophe, Shivambu et al and if you disagree then bad luck. If they are deeply hurtful to you then maybe you should seek therapy or buy a kitten.