Comrade Dot's rose-tinted specs
I confess to a mixture of agogedness (new word invented) and sheer admiration at the impressive volume and occasionally erudite output of Comrade Dot. We may not agree on anything but at least I know that Comrade Dot will not only comment on what I have written every week but will also spend an inordinate amount of time monitoring other comments and then commenting on the comments. It's rather like a braai. I get the fire going and after a very short while I can wander off and have a few cool beers knowing that Dotty will be re-arranging the coals and making sure the fire remains hot.
Some say that Comrade Dot is a paid member of the ruling party employed to monitor comments on Politicsweb and keep the dossier on me up to date for any future deportation order. Flattering though this is I think it unlikely that the government would have a budget for such an activity. Which perhaps suggests that Comrade Dot may simply be a dedicated cyber stalker with absolutely nothing better to do all day than scan the pages of Politicsweb and post comments with what the Yanks would probably refer to as a 24/7 devotion to duty.
Despite my hectic daily schedule of having to walk around Zoo Lake every morning and have lunch with famous people I do try to read the comments following my weekly column. If, for some reason, I am out of internet range I ask my manservant to note the more interesting ones and inform me of them upon my return. A recurring leitmotif in Comrade Dot's comments suggests that I am a bit on the negative side when it comes to recognising the paltry achievements of the ANC over the past 19 years. So this week I thought I should perhaps clarify my position and draw the clear distinction between an Afro-pessimist and an Afro-realist.
An Afro-pessimist believes that nothing good can come out of the dark continent. I am certainly not in that camp. If I were an Afro-pessimist I wouldn't have been living here for over three decades and contributing generously to the Receiver of Revenue. Instead I would have been holed up in somewhere very white like Iceland and would have posted rude comments about Africans from a safe distance, thus avoiding the "racist" sobriquet.
However I do confess to being an Afro-realist and that is a totally different animal. For example I agree with Comrade Dot when he/she points out that many South Africans are better off than they were back in 1994. But I am afraid I have to take exception to Dotty's comment that "there is no growing amount of red tape and bureaucracy" and the claim that there is "nothing fragile about the SA economy" (Comments April 25th 16h19) in addition to the ludicrous assertion that SAA, Eskom, Transnet, SAPO and Telkom are "successes" (Comments April 25th 16h37....what did they put in your afternoon tea Dot?).