THE ADVENTURES OF STEENHUISEN IN UKRAINE
At least 14 journalists covering the war have been killed, making the sight of a politician effectively cosplaying as an investigative reporter a deeply unsavoury spectacle
Tintin in the Congo was published in 1931. It tells the story of the intrepid reporter Tintin and his dog, Snowy, who go to the Belgian Congo on a fact-finding mission. There are the typical racist tropes of the almost entirely unwoke literature of the colonial 1930s, such as civilising colourful Congolese natives, some big game hunting, and other encounters with wild animals. There’s also the somewhat odd discovery of a diamond smuggling gang run by none other than Al Capone. Trust those Americans to be involved.
I’m not, of course, suggesting that John Steenhuisen, leader of the DA, shadow minister for Fikile Mbalula and holder of the Order of the Slap Tjip (second class), has anything in common with an annoying parody of an investigative reporter with a bad haircut, an “idealised man-boy” as Krishnadev Calamur once described him in The Atlantic. Well … I guess I kind of am.
Because here we are, with the DA apparently thinking that staging a sequel to Tintin in the Congo called Steenhuisen in Ukraine will win it hearts and minds, and possibly more importantly, money, rather than making it the laughing stock of SA. The great Anton Kannemeyer, of Bitterkomix fame, already did this parody in 2010, actually, with Pappa in Afrika, which showed us
Tintin as a racist Afrikaner.
Though to be fair, there are some South Africans who are applauding Steenhuisen’s trip, and it does stand in positive contrast to our government’s shilly-shallying when it comes to criticising Russia. Besides SA’s inglorious shenanigans at the UN, the Daily Maverick tells us that Ukraine’s ambassador to SA, Liubov Abravitova, said: “There was a long-standing invitation for National Assembly speaker Nosiviwe MapisaNqakula from her Ukrainian counterpart to visit.”
Turns out Steenhuisen wasn’t invited officially. The Ukrainian ambassador said “she saw Steenhuisen when he applied for a visa, but that her government had nothing to do with the organisation of the trip”.
As I write, the Radical Economic Transformation trolls of Twitter are probably having a field day with the revelation that the trip was sponsored by the Brenthurst Foundation, which was of course set up by the Oppenheimer family.
The Wikipedia description of
Tintin is a lot more positive than my one above, and perhaps this is the self-image that Steenhuisen sees reflected in the doe-like eyes of his communications team. “Tintin has a sharp intellect, can defend himself, and is honest, decent, compassionate, and kind. Through his investigative reporting, quick-thinking, and all-around good nature, Tintin is always able to solve the mystery, complete the adventure” and bring DA voters driven away by that nasty Mmusi Maimane back to the fold.
What happened to Steenhuisen in Ukraine? Did our hero have adventures like Tintin’s? Those were pretty exciting, as described on Wikipedia. A “stowaway attempts to kill Tintin, binding him and hanging him from a tree branch over a river to be eaten by crocodiles, but he is rescued by a passing Catholic missionary, who invites Tintin to go on an elephant hunt. Then, disguised as a missionary, the stowaway captures Tintin again, leaving him tied up in a boat set to go over a waterfall, but the Catholic priest once again saves him. Tintin confronts the stowaway and they fight over a cliff, where the latter is eaten by crocodiles.”
Alas, there are some less-thangripping pictures from Steenhuisen. There’s one of him standing in front of two bombed-out buildings, hands clasped and staring soulfully off into the distance, like a gone-to-seed TikTok influencer having an existential crisis.
The one of him squatting in front of an exploded shell, looking as if he is
Perhaps this is what Steenhuisen sees reflected in the doe-like eyes of his communications team
trying to convince it to vote DA, is ludicrous. What is this photograph meant to make us think? Look, he found a bomb! He’s thinking about it! What will he learn? That Russians are mean?
Am I the only one getting a distinct Comical Ali vibe here? You’ll remember Comical Ali as the hapless Iraqi information minister during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, who claimed on live TV that the US forces would die there while, in the background, advancing US tanks could be seen by camera crews filming his briefing. Comical Steenhuisen and his bomb give off the same perplexed air.
Eerily, in The Adventures of Tintin, Tintin in the Congo was the story right after Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.
That story has uneasy parallels with the saga of Steenhuisen in Ukraine, and the way some people think about how the ANC wins wards. “Tintin witnesses a local election, where the Bolsheviks threaten the voters to ensure their own victory; when they try to arrest him, he dresses as a ghost to scare them away.” Is the ghost Helen Zille? Perhaps, perhaps.
Later on, “spying on a secret Bolshevik meeting, Tintin learns that all the Soviet grain is being exported abroad for propaganda purposes, leaving the people starving, and that the government plans to ‘organise an expedition against the kulaks, the rich peasants, and force them at gunpoint to give us their corn’.”
Corn, or rather wheat, is one of the threads running through Steenhuisen’s justification for his trip. And he is, of course, right to warn of the adverse economic effects on SA and Africa. Quite whether he needed to actually go to Ukraine to work this out is questionable, but even more questionable is the way he expressed his concerns.
Cue scorn and ridicule when he tweeted: “Ukraine’s problems are our problems too. As I write, the price of chips in SA school tuck shops is going up due to the soaring price of cooking oil.” Chips in tuck shops? Seriously? As an attempt to portray himself as a man of the people, this was a laughable fail.
But it wasn’t all spuddy revelations and informal chit-chat with local bombs. Quoted in the Daily Maverick, Brenthurst Foundation director Greg Mills (who himself has visited Ukraine twice) described the trip as “tough, particularly the drive to Kyiv, which was 700km from the border”.
“I admire John for having done this. Maybe some others will follow. The importance of taking John is that there is a parliamentary voice. It’s incredibly admirable. How many politicians would put themselves in harm’s way? At places where battles were recently fought they had to walk in each other’s footsteps because of unexploded ordnance,” Mills said.
But what does Steenhuisen himself say about why he was there, and the effect he had? In Tintin in the Congo, “Tintin becomes a hero in the village: when he cures a man using quinine, he is hailed as a …‘Breaker of Rocks’, and a local woman bows down to him, saying, ‘White man very great! Has good spirits … White mister is big juju man!’”
Steenhuisen’s goals were somewhat different, or possibly more disguised. According to EWN, he explained: “It’s been an opportunity to engage with former presidents, former prime ministers, mayors, governors, civil society, business and academia as well as ordinary Ukrainian citizens to understand what the impact of this conflict is on them, on the future and the path to peace.”
He also said that “it was strongly in SA’s interests to stand with the free world and come out hard against Russian aggression. He explained that the war is not a European problem but a global one that will affect what South Africans pay for items such as fuel, maize, cooking oil and fertiliser.” I think most South Africans would agree with this statement, but many would still be befuddled about why you’d need to actually go to Ukraine to work this out. I mean, did Sergey Brin and Larry Page die for our sins in vain?
At least 14 journalists covering the Ukraine war have been killed so far, making the sight of a politician effectively cosplaying as an investigative reporter to score political points a deeply unsavoury spectacle.
I thought the height of absurdity had been reached when Fikile Mbalula tweeted the bald-faced lie: “Just landed in Ukraine.” Ah well. Never underestimate the DA.