Speaker’s corner

Exciting trade prospects with Canada – Business Report. – Chief Sitting Duck, seated on his piebald pony, Kicking Bucket, suddenly materialised out of the early morning mist on the far side of the valley where the Little Big Stick flows. This is the valley where the Great Eagle (the spirit of his ancestor, Chief Creeking Knee) soars; the valley of the Great Spruce; the valley where the Great Bear is guardian of the deep forest, etc, etc.

The chief gazed across the Little Big Stick to meet the eye of the South African trade representative. “How!” he cried in hearty salutation. Vuyo Dlamini of Trade and Industry (for it was he) thought Sitting Duck had said “Hau!” and was perplexed to hear this familiar word so far from home. His face clouded over like the Rockies. “Sawubona!” he called in reply. Sitting Duck had expected a Paleface and was quite taken aback. “Blackface!” boomed Sitting Duck, “from the Great Land south of the Great Little Big Stick; south of the Great Water which washes our two lands; south where the plughole water goes down clockwise or anti-clockwise, or whatever; Great Nation of the Rainbow and Bafana Bafana – greetings!

“You come to trade with the Redman and, of course, all the others because here we are not colour-conscious and never have been, well not since about 1989. Well hardly.”

Dlamini cast his voice so that it carried above the roar of the white waters of the Little Big Stick; above the howl of the Great She Wolf who held the ancestral spirit of the Great Cree Chief, Chief Sitting Duck’s cousin twice removed (once to make way for a dam and once for a highway); above the cry of the bald eagle... (Now where was I?)

Dlamini said, “I have come to do a deal regarding cheap housing. We badly need fast, cheap housing in the Land of the Rainbow.” “Ah,” said the chief, “Indian housing?” “Well, no,” said Dlamini. “African housing. But to tell you the truth, Chief, when they said I was to meet an Indian I expected an Indian Indian. You are a funny colour for an Indian.” (Dlamini’s director-general would have preferred him to have put it more subtly.) “Me, Redskin,” boomed Sitting Duck. Dlamini, not wanting to ruffle Sitting Duck’s feathers, found himself slipping into the old government’s vernacular – he said, “Ja, well, no, fine.”

Dlamini went on to explain the transition that had taken place in South Africa and how South Africans haven’t been colourconscious since 11am on May 10, 1994. Well hardly. He said the days had gone when it was disadvantageous to have a black skin. Nowadays, he said, it was the palefaces who were finding their skins getting hot and uncomfortable.

Meanwhile Dlamini was saying to himself, “But, man, a red skin – what would the Nats have made of THAT?

He called across to Sitting Duck: “What sort of housing do your people have that’s cheap and quick to build?”

Sitting Duck pointed down the valley where the Little Big Stick flows; down the valley where the Great Eagle soars, etc. etc.

Dlamini then noticed, for the first time: “Wigwams!” (Strictly speaking, dear reader, they are properly called “tepees”.)

“Man,” he said, again to himself, “I’ve heard of informal housing but this takes the ikhekhe. Just three poles with skin wrapped round them. We could house everybody in South Africa by the end of the month.”

And so they drew up a contract and Sitting Duck is now managing director of Little Big Stick Wigwam Company. He has a guaranteed market south of the Great Limpopo; south where the Big Smoke fills the sky; south where parliament and rugby have so much in common, south where the nights are haunted by the sound of sirens – etc.