I’m Tonya Khoury, I’m back from a news hiatus and I’ve read the news, so you don’t have to. The biggest headline while I was away was the death of #MinisterLuckyStar, the wonderful Tito Mboweni.
This man kept our country on the straight and narrow for so long; he counted our rands and cents and when he realised that he couldn’t get ahead of the greed he left.
Ramaphosa begged him to return in the #NewDawn years, remember them? Ah, we had such hope. Tito did a magnificent job – except nothing changed from his last tango with the ANC so he left the greed again. He returned to his farm, rolled a j and opened a can of fish and danced to Jerusalema with his grandkids. I adored this man, and we are a poorer country without him. Rest in peace Tito Mboweni Sha Sha.
Tomorrow is #ChildrensDay. Look around you. All I see are headlines dripping with the blood of our kids. My first question is, what is this uncontrollable, food poisoning virus that seems to have attacked South Africa. #Motsaoledi will have you believe it is due to a highly toxic pesticide that seems to have crept into stale chocolate and crisps. He said #SpazaShops are to blame.
Deadly toxin
I don’t buy it, not even for a minute. Come on man, this epidemic is all across the country, not in one city or region, not even in one state. How is that possible? At least six children were killed. If you want my honest opinion, I believe this is a staple food that carries the deadly toxin. It’s something that is produced by a major corporate in South Africa and they are hiding behind the entrepreneurs who struggle to keep our nation fed.
They want you to believe that #SpazaShops are the new ISIS, but I don’t believe it. Something’s off.
Then I read how five minor boys raped a 14-year-old girl; another kid raped five matrics and a five-year-old boy was shot dead. I read how a soccer star got into a car drunk and killed a kid. I read that a despicable man called Schoeman bought a child aged 13 and used her as a sex slave for years.
These cases are so frequent that we forget these headlines; do you remember #Jerobejin van Wyk? Probably not. Well this child was killed by a 58-year-old farmer for stealing fruit. It turns out that the fruit wasn’t the actually cause for killing the child. #DanielSmit was found guilty of killing the 13-year-old and dumping the remains in sewage pipes. It is believed that Smit was part of the “Chinese Occult” whatever that is.
At least he’s going to prison, we all know what happens to child killers in prison. And then this story… I can’t get my head around it. I’ve been following it all week and I’m still not clear on the exact details. Kaone, a 20-month-old little boy was left in the care of his father and we are told that the little one fell in the pool and drowned. This while there were two helpers in the house. A one a half year old kid and an open pool and two helpers? You’re going to agree, that’s odd, right?
#ChildrensDay
Well, get this, within two days the child was buried, his mother hadn’t even returned from her trip to attend to a family issue. He buried that child without a single member of the mother’s family in attendance. Have you ever heard such a thing? The mom is fighting in every corner. She got approval for the body to be exhumed. She believes her child may not even be dead. If you ask social media that believe the child was sold or the father killed the child. The updates are being shared on Instagram as #Letsego fights to find out what happened to her baby.
#ChildrensDay will not fix that. Neither will our government. It’s down to us, if we’re not helping our children, what’s our purpose, vele?
The biggest story of the week is none of these, we are used to seeing gory headlines about our littlies. The biggest story is about money. It’s the #MidTermBudgetPolicyStatement. #MTBPS. #EnochGodongwane should get into the Guiness Book of Records. His entire speech lasted 45 minutes. I play these things on double speed so 20-odd minutes later I was done. He didn’t say anything. His speech was firstly inaudible (no, not because of the speed I played it on), and he’s not very eloquent.
And you couple that with a lack of substance and well, it could have been an email and instead you lost an hour (or 20 minutes depending on how you watched). Enoch said that early retirement is the silver bullet. And then he told us that we are dsic trillion in debt and that is 75% of our GDP. Servicing our debts is costing R388bn. For every rand we have in our country 22 cents belongs to a set of loan sharks. South African #PaydayLoans.
Not today, maybe later
That bit isn’t even funny, even if he did sound like a chipmunk on my screen. When the journos questioned Enoch Knock about the brevity of the statement and what was his stance on the schools without budgets for teachers and the state of healthcare’s finances, he responded: “Not today, maybe later” or something like that. He gave us the knock, mate. Knock Knock, who’s there? Nona, Nona who? Nona your business.
And how is politrix in general? #Ramaphosa attended the #BRICS Summit Outreach. And he could literally reach out and touch Putin. He loves Putin, our Ramatress. He said that Russia was a great ally of South Africa; I mean what was he going to say? The DA went mad. But seriously what did you want him to say, guys? He’s sitting in the room with the scariest man on the planet who basically owns us and you want him to say what exactly? What would you say? Knock Knock it’s a despot.
#Zuma is appealing his expulsion from the ANC, don’t ask me guys. This place is weird. All is not well in the MK camp as leaked recordings capture Zuma chastising his crew about fighting for jobs. #Gigaba, Gigabyte, the candy crusher is back in Parliament even though he’s implicated in the Zondo Commission. Knock knock, it might be the cops. #Mashatile had a lack lustre Q and A. #Panyasa seems to be a headline hogger, doesn’t he?
He had a scuffle with the media, in particular News24, which he called #FakeNews. That’s so funny. Who is this guy? And then there’s his sparring partner #Fikile #Razmatazz Mbalula who also had a pop at his comrades about succession talks. Restless hey? The GNU is making us fidgety. Trying to avoid the #HardKnock life, hey?
Always the weather
Then there was the weather. We had hail in Sodwana, I think that might be a first. Like golfballs, everyone says that don’t they, but they were. I got caught in it, obviously, I’m so dramatic but car and dog are safe. I’m the lucky one as many people died in Mpumalanga due to another massive hailstorm. This weather is crazy, at least I have a dune protecting me from the sea or I’d have to reassess my life choices. Anyway I digress.
#Checkers has been on a shopping spree, haven’t they? Buying the liquor stores from Pick n Pay and SPAR. Isn’t that interesting? And then those minis, guys, what on earth is going on? The mothers in our burbs are chasing a pink miniature shopping trolley and will pay up to two grand for it. Mind yourselves, you may get knocked over in the rush on #BlackFriday that’s looming. Pink miniature shopping trolleys, I kid you not.
There was piles of news over the time I was away: Rachel #Kutumela is the new #RosemaryNdlovu; she applied for bail this week. She’s a cop and she killed off many of her family for insurance fraud. She assigned herself to the crime scenes. It’s like she watched the Rosemary doccie and took notes. What is happening?
It was the anniversary of the #SenzoTrial, 10 years, 10 whole years and we are still checking cell phone records. There were interviews with Senzo’s mom and that poor woman will probably never find out what happened to her son. That’s it, that’s South Africa wrapped up, well apart from the unpaid grants and the nation’s poorest of the poor being left without respite during November. That, and the fact that despite the calls for boycott, #ChrisBrown is still coming to South Africa. I hope that stadium is empty, I can dream, can’t I? Knock on wood.
Genocide in Palestine
Across the continents, South Africa put forward 4 000-page document to the #ICJ against the genocide in Palestine. #BotswanaDecides as the votes are closed and the counting begins. Mozambique are going through it as election time is upon them. Sudan is just mind boggling, how can we watch two genocides on our screens and no one does anything? Is the world we created?
It’s very chaotic in international media. Spain is struggling to recover after massive flooding. Trump is steaming ahead, can you believe that? I don’t want to but it looks like it. At one of his rallies, a comedian made a bad joke about Puerto Rico (he basically called it an island of floating rubbish), and that set the media wheels in motion, the next thing Biden was calling Trump’s supporters rubbish in a terrible interview. Can this man please go home, guys?
You’re cruel really! I’m not done though because Trumpy Wumpy then got into a garbage truck and drove around town. He’s worked this election, hey? From MacDonald’s to dump trucks. And Americans are lapping it up. The election is live as we speak and this is going to gauge the temperature of our planet for a while. No wonder it’s #halloween.
Good people, don’t knock our country. We have big mountains to climb and great rivers to cross. Muster your strength, South Africa, we are hurtling to the end of the year. Happy new month, the last true working month of the year.
I’m Tonya Khoury and thank you for scratching the surface with me and Acumen Media.
