Big Brother's Little Granny is Watching You

It’s surprising that there’s so much freedom and democracy around, because there are dictators everywhere!

The granny-Goebbels living below us wrote a rude note in the foyer because someone dared hang their laundry in the communal braai area. It was only for a few hours in the sun, and as I passed it on the way to do Lucy and my gruds I thought, “Wish I could let myself do that!”

I can’t, you see, because my paranoid South African mind worries that someone will jump over the wall and pinch my holy t-shirts and Lucy’s sexy knickers.

As a resident, the fact someone else could do it didn’t bother me at all.

She signed the handwritten letter: The Trustees, before she putty’d it to the marble counter-top. I figured if she’d gone to all the trouble to call a meeting and vote on it the least she could do was type and print it out with a cute Swastika letterhead.

And then I thought about all the other mini-dictators in the world, ruling their little Zimbabwes with an iron, wrinkly fist.

Not all are wrinkly and frail either. Just think of your boss, or your mother, laying down the law with no parliamentary committee or public participation. And almost everyone on a block of flats’ body corporate are self-righteous control freaks.

It’s inevitable that some of these people would end up on the top of the pile; the figureheads of entire nations.

With the possible exception of hippies, most parents are fascist bastards – they have to be – otherwise their kids would end up pregnant teenagers, drug addicts or worse… writers!

Most of the time it’s much easier to steer someone else’s destiny than your own. And growing up you quickly realise that most of the decisions that affect your life are made in your absence (if I may paraphrase Salman Rushdie).

People blab that “power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely” – I don’t think that’s true at all. The world isn’t a kiddies’ TV show, but imagine the state of it if everyone in authority was bent?

Corruption does not necessarily infect those in power, but those with corruptible natures will always seek out power.