Robert Mugabe Joke Day

Talk about thin-skinned! A 52-year-old man in Zimbabwe has to stand trial for telling a joke about despotic prez Robert Mugabe, News24 reports.

So in solidarity with office clowns across Africa, I hereby declare today ‘Mad Bob Bad Joke Day’, and to kick it off here’s one my dad told me back when he still walked this bizarre mudball we call home (I mean Earth, not South Africa).

Poor Bob Mugabe dies and the bus drops him off, suitcases in hand, outside the Pearly Gates of Heaven. He steps through the Gates and when he approaches Saint Peter looks down the long guest list, “I’m sorry, Mr Mugabe, but your name’s not here.”

Peter picks up the phone and calls the front desk at Hell. He’s on that list, and Satan says he’ll send two demons to pick him up.

Bob arrives in Hell to a warm reception. “Mr Mugabe,” says an elated Lucifer, “we’ve got your room ready. Just grab your bags and follow me.”

But, oops, Bob’s gone and forgotten his suitcases.

“No worries,” says Lu, “I’ll send some cronies to get them.” He clicks his fingers and two little demons appear, “Go get Mr Mugabe’s bags, will you.”

The demons salute and rush off back to the Pearly Gates. But when they get there the Gates are locked tight. They peer in and see Bob’s bags on the other side.

“Oh shit,” says the first demon, “what are we gonna do now?”

The second demon has a plan. He lifts his colleague onto his shoulders and tells him to climb on top of the wall. Then the first demon pulls the second up and they jump down to get the bags.

Meanwhile, Peter and the Archangel Gabriel are on their lunch hour having tea and sandwiches in the Peter’s office.

Saint Peter looks out the window and sees two demons standing next to a pair of suitcases. “For fudge’s sake!” exclaims Peter angrily.

“What’s up?” asks Gabriel.

Peter slams his teacup down and says, “That bloody Mugabe hasn’t been in Hell for five minutes and already we’ve got refugees!”

Drum roll, please. Thanks folks, I’ll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waitress.

Don't Touch Me On My 'Culture'

You can say what you want about our president, but the man certainly is virile.

With the wife-count sitting at three, he has no less than two fiancées. And on top of all that his extra-marital philandering is public knowledge.

God only knows how many kids he has, and I think the official count is somewhere around 22.

Zuma has excused his actions, saying, “That’s my culture!” and also mentioned that many western, monogamous politicians have mistresses.

The thing is, if you’re defending polygamy and attacking extra-marital affairs, how do you explain your own cheating ways? The reason we always see Zuma with that fat grin on his mug is because he somehow manages to have his cake and eat it.

Maybe it’s because his current wives really only care about the money and status that they don’t mind. Maybe being a woman within a polygamous culture makes you a bit more thick-skinned when it comes to your man sticking his dick into anything with a heartbeat. Maybe JZ actually is so damn charming that he manages to talk himself out of accountability for his indiscretions.

But playing the culture card is something I have a bit of a problem with.

Middle Eastern cultures allow family honour killings. Acts like virginity testing and female circumcision are excused as ‘part of our culture’.

In Mali, if a man leaves town and is worried his wife’s going to fool around, it is culturally acceptable for him to sew her vagina closed.

And why are all these ‘cultural’ beliefs patriarchal? Why isn’t it a case of ‘what’s good for the gander is good for the goose’? In this age of equality, why can’t a woman be let off the hook for infidelity as easily as a man is?

Am I being racist or ethnocentric for believing that it’s wrong for a man to be able to have as many sexual partners as he likes, while women must make do with just the one useless lump? It’s not the act of polygamy that I have such a beef with, it’s the unfairness of the whole set-up.

When you think about it, saying that men are allowed to do certain things but women aren’t is as bad as saying that whites are allowed to do certain things but blacks aren’t.

It’s as bad as excusing racism and intolerance as just part of our South African culture.

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I Wanna be an Albino Buddha

After dozing off on the couch last night, towards the end of an old eighties movie called Flatliners, I woke up this morning thinking about death.

I was a happy child, but every now and again I’d stand in the kitchen with a knife in my hand and consider stabbing it into my guts. In those moments, I felt as though I was on the precipice of an amazing discovery.

Death is only scary because it is the Unknown. In school we were taught Divinity and Religious Education – something I’m glad to hear has been struck from the curriculum these days – so my generation was bombarded with images of Hell and told it was the final destination for sinners.

I think if we’d been taught about reincarnation and karma instead, growing old wouldn’t seem as terrifying.

I find the idea that my lot in this life has everything to do with how I behaved in my last life quite comforting; and the notion that the more selflessly I act in this life will determine how the next turns out encourages more good behaviour than the belief in a Father Christmas figure up in the clouds.

I think the worst thing to come back as would be an albino – sounds mean, I know, but let me explain.

Life for albinos is a lot more shitty than, say, having no legs or Down ’s syndrome. At least society has some measure of sympathy and compassion for those with disabilities, and it would be cruel to call albinism a disability – you can still run, hold a job, think laterally; your eyesight’s fucked and you have a high risk of contracting skin cancer, but that’s the least of your problems.

Aside from being hunted in places like Tanzania for muti, albinos must put up with insults, discrimination, and ostracism. And this behaviour, just like our attitudes regarding death, stems from fear.

In Africa it is widely believed that albinos are otherworldly, magical beings. Fishermen on Lake Victoria weave albino hair into their nets for bigger catches. Miners in the Mbeya coal fields splash albino blood on the ground in the hopes that rare gems will be drawn to it. And sangomas pay big bucks for albino body parts.

Andrew Malone of the Daily Mail reports that having sex with an albino is believed to cure diseases, which results in “countless rapes… leaving [the victim] HIV positive”.

If I was so backwardly superstitious, I reckon I’d be more concerned with pissing off such ‘magical beings’ in case they unleash ancestors-know-what on my arse – but on such a violent continent, the ‘let’s kill them’ mentality prevails.

And wouldn’t it be interesting to have a mate with some connection to this Harry Potter-esque world, with all its mystery and cool shit?

I think if we are reincarnated, it is to learn something about the universe, humanity, and how to live our lives. Maybe the worse off our situation, the more we learn – you can’t grow in a comfort zone.

And if life is all about spiritual education and knowledge, I can safely say I’d rather come back as an African albino than a Swedish porn star.

In a nice ironic twist, those sangomas and misguided rapists would get the same treatment.