Keep quiet DA! Just let Bathabile go ... far, far away
The DA must be stopped. Urgently.
I don’t want to overstate this, but we need to acknowledge that the official opposition is trying to do catastrophic damage to the fabric of this country.
Yes, reader: the DA is trying to keep Bathabile Dlamini inside SA.
Earlier in September, various news outlets reported that Dlamini was one of six former ministers likely to ascend into the afterlife that awaits all senior ANC cadres if they are widely unemployable but know where the smallanyana skeletons are buried: an ambassadorship abroad.
This wasn’t the shocking bit.
The ANC has been shovelling its toxic waste overseas for years, sending the disgraced and the demented wandering off into the world like empty chip packets floating away to join the great Pacific trash heap.
No, the shocking part was the DA’s announcement, first reported on Friday and confirmed on Tuesday, that it will go to court to block Cyril Ramaphosa from sending Dlamini abroad.
Why does the DA hate us so much?
What have we done to Mmusi Maimane that makes him want to hurt us like this?
Why would he deliberately try to inflict Dlamini on this country for one second longer than necessary?
Why, given the choice between keeping her around and making her disappear almost immediately, would any sane human think the first option was anything but a form of collective punishment?
Making people disappear, of course, is the whole point of SA’s diplomatic corps.
Those who are sent to foreign cities are never, ever heard from again.
To become an SA ambassador is to be thrown into a sensory deprivation tank inside a sound-proofed bunker under an abandoned mining outpost on an uninhabited planet in deep space.
The absolute worst-case scenario is that they go on a Twitter rampage, but those only last a day or two before the deep, deep silence returns.
No doubt the DA is couching its heinous plan in terms of fiscal frugality and national reputation.
How, it will probably ask, can we justify someone like Dlamini earning a fat salary while being so patently useless at her job?
And why appoint someone who will almost certainly paint the country in a bad light?
The answer to the first question is simple.
Paying people huge salaries for being terrible at their job is what we call “living in South Africa”, so it seems unfair to make an exception for Dlamini.
The key, however, is not to think of it as wasted money.
Instead, think of those hundreds of thousands of rands as a very, very small price to pay for never hearing about Dlamini ever again.
As for what a potential Ambassador Dlamini would do to SA’s reputation, well, the DA needs to ask itself: does it endorse false advertising, or should the writing on the box reflect what’s inside?
Who would be a better candidate to represent our government: a charismatic, intelligent, humane diplomat, or a living, breathing example of the sort of person produced and elevated by this state?
If we tell the rest of the world that SA rewards honesty and competence, what happens when they actually meet us?
No, much better we are upfront about who we are and send Dlamini to scowl, deny, cajole and sulk in the great cities of the world.
Which is why we must tell the DA with a single voice: let her go!
Far, far away.
● This article first appeared on TimesSELECT