In an early act of cultural appropriation, circa 1900, Theodore Roosevelt, then governor of New York, borrowed the West African proverb: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”  Since then, this has become the cornerstone of American diplomacy and countless John Wayne-style westerns.

The West’s response to Putin’s blatant aggressive and posturing, like a dog on heat, has been decidedly tepid.  Their big stick has been more of a hoary old divining rod that twitches every so often, hopefully indicating a way forward. 

Hanging over the European nations, particularly Germany, is that fact that they have supped with the devil in seeking cheap gas supplied via a pipeline direct from Russia.  The result has been a few threatening statements and the flying in of a few extra weapons.  Oh yes, America did send a lightly armed battalion into Poland, more than 1000km away from any frontline.  The main weapon in the West’s response arsenal has been the threat of sanctions.

Sanctions never stopped Hugo Chavez nationalising the filthy rich Venezuela into economic oblivion.

Sanctions never gave a moment’s pause to Mugabe and his thugs as he stole elections through mass killings and intimidation and drove his country into miserable irrelevance, sucking off the desiccated hind tit of SA to survive.

Sanctions never stopped the Ayatollahs of Iran from spewing jihadist bile and continuing their nuclear weapons program.

Sanctions never stopped the young un of the hermit kingdom from growing fat on the backs of his people’s starvation while playing Solitaire Megalomania with his nuclear program and ICBM’s in his private bunker.

Sanctions never diverted the course of destructive socialism during the nigh-on 60 years of the Castro family’s ideological rule.

Closer to home, sanctions never caused the old Nationalist government to waver in the least in their racial beliefs and, in fact, served as a useful propaganda tool at election time.  Their kragdadigheid (forcefulness or hard-arsed attitude) in the face of international opprobrium served to drive all the fence sitters into their camp to deliver the largest majority that the Nationalist Party had ever seen.

Sanctimonious sanctions don’t work.  All they do is to provide those governments with a fig leaf to hide the embarrassment of their shrivelled-up impotence.  They are as irrelevant to the course of history as that flimsy piece of paper that Chamberlain waved when he claimed a “peace for our time” after a meeting with Hitler in 1938.

Mandela promised us a Rainbow Nation colourfully and charismatically led by the Arch in his purple daze.

Mbeki next foresaw an African Renaissance which became a Dream Deferred until further notice when the historical library in Mali that SA helped refurbish was trashed by jihadists.

Zuma actually delivered a New Age, except it was a SOE funded newspaper written by his Gupta gabbas.

Cyril tossed his hat into the ring when he dared to dream of a New Dawn during his inauguration in 2018.

He doubled down on that idea in 2019 with an “I had a dream” moment.  He described inspirational, sangoma-like visons of bullet trains linking smart mega-cities, some of which didn’t exist yet (and never will).

Covid put grand dreams and schemes on hold except for people like Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma who had visions of a smoke and alcohol-free future which she could order by fiat.  For a brief period she wielded more power than all the previous presidents.  The Nationalist Party gave us Dr No (Dr AP Treurnicht) and the ANC gave us Dr Party Pooper with her mirthless, glum visage.  At a stroke of her poison administrative pen, she entrenched low-life criminal gangs in our society with their bootleg smokes and alcohol to the tjoon of 10s of billions of Rands, tax free. 

Covid also engendered visions of SA becoming a vaccination hub as a shot on the arm of the economy.  This pipe dream took root particularly after the developed world stuck it to us, not that we’ve done much with the vaccines now that they’re freely available.

Fast forward to the 2022 SONA. Cyril foretold of an end to the SOD (State of Disaster).  Unfortunately, he wasn’t talking about the resurrection of the country into a winning nation after 27 years of devastation caused by state capture, racist socialist policies and ideologies, incompetent and corrupt SOE Boards and executives, general corruption at every level and in every national, provincial and local department, overstaffing with overpaid, unmotivated and largely underqualified government employees, political and trade union violence and intransigence, political assassinations, pie-in-the-sky theoretical dreams like outcomes-based education, …. 

No, he was talking about something much easier.  At the stroke of an administrative pen, his war council will lift most of the remaining restrictions of our confinement.  Is it going to make much difference?  No, it just means that we can get mugged by people not wearing masks and sanitising beforehand.  Hopefully though, it will mean an end to the hugely overpriced and largely unnecessary deep cleaning of schools and government buildings on the nearest whiff of a Covid case – a small win in the junkyard of shattered dreams.

All I have to say is – SOD them and SOD off.

There are two standout features of a SONA (State of the Nation) address. 

The first is the outlandish and expensive garb of the ANC members, predominately.  Who could ever forget the wholly unsuitable yellow confection that one lady MP had poured herself into in and pulled poses for the cameras like it was the red carpet at the Oscars?  And then, of course, there was Lucy Gigaba, newly minted head of Pubic Enterprises, who took time off from videoing himself masturbating to nattily strut the catwalk looking like a debonair pilot flashing tons of pearly whites in a Peter Stuyvesant advert.  These are Marie Antoinette moments.

In recent years, these displays of self-aggrandisement and self-deception have been toned down but the self-aggrandisement and self-deception of the address and promises have not.  If things go according to script tonight, the Precedent will cherry pick some minor achievements and statistics to show that the government actually works for you.  He will then proceed to make vague promises about improving our lot and will unflinchingly look straight into the heart of the video camera while he claims that the government will clamp down on corruption – pinky promise.

With SA reeling under the impact of two years of Covid and four years of Zondo, Squirrel will have a tough time trying to hide his nuts.  Nevertheless, he will, and I predict that, once stripped of its banal rhetoric, tonight’s address will be same old, same old.  I will not be listening and all I can say is –

SONA SE MOER!

The ANC was founded on 8 January 1912 and since 1994 it has celebrated this event in an expensive masturbatory orgy of self-indulgence as befitting our newly-minted champagne Socialists.

After nearly 50 years of negotiation with the intransigent White minority, the events surrounding Sharpeville in 1960 forced the ANC to adopt a militant approach to bring about change by making the country ungovernable using military action as well as civil disobedience and violence.  The intervening years also saw the ANC move from a purely African organisation to one that accommodated all races.

The struggle violence didn’t stop with the negotiations to bring about a new dawn but actually intensified – this time the targets being threats like the IFP, a brother black organisation. 

Violence became the new normal for the new South Africa and the ANC, like doting and indulgent parents, allowed its lackeys to continue to express themselves violently and destructively whenever they were dissatisfied with their lot.  The ANC (and by extension, the country) is now reaping the whirlwind of this indulgence, where violence has become acceptable political and economic discourse and councillors, amongst others, are regularly mowed down in order for others to feed at the lucrative but foetid trough of corruption.

Along the way, the ANC has gone back to its roots by having lost just about all its white members.  Those that remain are regarded as house mlungu or useful idiots and the few coloureds and Indians left are tolerated in its pretence of multiracialism.  It has become a party of Black people for Black people and is all about the struggle for factional political power and, hence, financial advantage.

A luta continua (the struggle continues), a rallying cry for liberation organisations, and its humorous translation, a looter continues, have never been more apt for the ANC.