To the honourable Mr Kebby Maphatsoe, I saw the picture. It’s evil. It’s venal. And I know it’s not you in those portly pyjamas, writes Madala Thepa.
Revolutionary greetings, leadership - the great supreme leader of the MKVA, the honourable Mr Kebby Maphatsoe. We live in a strange time. Things are beginning to tell. Lately there has been a pernicious spread of populism in this country and within the movement.
The little ankle-biters of the glorious movement, the ANC Youth League, have shown that they have no strategy for training. Democracy has deprived us of the encouragement to be good citizens. We piss in the same immoral values’ pot that we discourage others from. It is hard for a man to protect his territory and his ego. Times are tough.
Leadership, this is serious. Let me get to it. I’m cognisant of the fact that the so-called Hate Bill has been passed and I can’t risk being reckless with words. This means playtime is over for those who sell themselves as some kind of satirists. We know them by their lame jokes even when they insist that they reflect the turmoil of the period.
Leadership, I saw the picture. It’s evil. It’s venal. It shows a man who looks like you leaning over in an avant-garde pose, his finger on the margins of the print, his trophies snug between the thighs.
My immediate reaction was that the picture was a fake. I know it’s not you in those portly pyjamas. Veterans of the struggle don’t have a curved waistline like the one in the picture unless they benefit from obscene perks. The bloody picture is a manipulation. It suggests that a revolutionary soldier of the movement had a pimpled affair with a young woman without the protective military apparel. A man of your stature would never play like that.
Soldiers of the revolution don’t have the mental endurance any more to stick it out with young queens. They can hardly afford a hotel room without air conditioning, let alone afford the expensive escapades of snuggling with a young queen.
The best they could possibly do is to clap their eyes naughtily on a young woman and wish they were young again. Not this debauchery. I notice there is an air conditioner in that room and some very kitsch landscape paintings, newspapers, a reading lamp and table mirror and what looks like Egyptian sheets where those curated thighs are exhibited.
I’d be lying if I said the room was full of Byzantine and Italian elements. For some reason I’m failing to guess the period of that design.
But I see from how those sheets crumple that they are of fine quality. They must be Egyptian. This tells me upfront that the man in that picture is the quintessential blesser - a posh boy but not necessarily the idle rich.
He is running a tight tenderpreneur ship and has priority access to food - another name for patriarchy. The guy in the photo is the type that snaffles the extra kickbacks from contractors who work with the government. This cannot be you, leadership. Discipline is sacrosanct in your ranks. You live it. You espouse it.
Look within the movement, leadership. The fight was issued from within your canton. This is a cleansing ceremony mounted from within. If not, this has monopoly capital written all over it. A gang of usurpers is bent on reversing the gains of the national democratic revolution. This is a gross misrepresentation of a revolutionary soldier.
Needless to say, the man’s assets in that deplorable picture are not quite representative.
They lack the formal rigour of a man who was once a soldier. The man in that picture has depleted his user agreement assigned at birth - the human periodic table that suggests that, from 60 years upwards, sex is a hit-and-miss affair.
So I can’t imagine you in that room. The fellow in the picture has a well-worn wool thread around his magnificent waist and this for me immediately recalled the Apostolic faith.
So we have established one thing so far - that the man in the photo is of African descent, a man of ecclesiastical bent and that he might be South African. He looks like you but that doesn’t mean it is you. It could be anyone. This is a forgery.
The photo I received had a time on it. It reported that the sitter posed for this portrait at 9:35pm. The quality of the light in the picture suggests day time. I see detailed naturalism. But knowing Cape Town, night time can look like day time. I’m not suggesting this is Cape Town.
This might have happened in some geographical remove, far out in the wilderness.
But technology can reach even those who hide under a bushel. So let’s agree that it was almost night. And knowing how old age toys with veterans, they tuck up after watching Generations Legacy. They don’t hunt past that time. So this is a fake. It was photoshopped.
I see artistic metiers represented in that image. If this were a painting I would be talking worked-up impasto - the process of laying pigment thickly so that it stands out from a surface.
The greyish patina on your face, head and neck does not go with the yellow-bone structure. That structure is in ruinous condition. It cannot be you. It will never be you. So there. This is a fake.
In the art world, historical hypotheses are known to be problematic. I suspect the same problem in this recent picture.
But I’m piqued, leadership. Who is that welcoming Venus leading a great man to a gathering of liberal fruits? For the life of me I cannot trivialise this.
This picture troubles me. It speaks of sour grapes from Venus. The man in the picture has done something graver than not paying Venus her sex money.
I suspect this to be Venus’s moralising intention of her work. But she is digging her grave on the wrong side of history.
Sue Venus, leadership. She will tell who she works for.
Yours in literary arms.
* Thepa is a freelance writer.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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