Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Kangaroo Court


Kangaroo Court

            ‘Grandpa,’ said Thoko, ‘I remember how you used to tell us stories when we were young. But even though I’m now grown up, can’t you tell me another one, just like you used to?’
‘Once upon a time, a long time ago in the land of Mfuwe,’ I began, ‘the animals always met around the Watering Hole to lay down the law.’
          ‘It was their parliament,’ said Nawiti.
          ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘But on the day of this story they were meeting as a court.’
          ‘Oh no Grandpa, you’ve got it all wrong,’ laughed Thoko. ‘Parliament makes the law and the court administers it. We learnt that in Grade Seven.’
          ‘But Mfuwe was a peculiar place,’ I explained. ‘If a king had done wrong, the case had first to be brought to parliament to remove his immunity from prosecution. So the watering hole had now become a court.’
          ‘What had the king done wrong?’
          ‘The problem was with the previous King Nyamasoya, who was an old Dinosaur. Not only that, he was the last Dinosaur left in world. Tourists would come all the way from America and Germany to look at him. So he was collecting all the money from the tourists. The new King Chimbwi was very angry, because nobody ever came to visit him.’
          ‘I’m not surprised,’ laughed Thoko. 'I wouldn’t go near a Chimbwi, they’re very dangerous and unpredictable.’
          ‘They are likely to sneak up behind you and bite your bum,’ I admitted.
          ‘But half a minute,’ said Thoko, ‘being popular with the tourists can’t be an offence.’
          ‘Not in law,’ I laughed. ‘But it offended the new King Chimbwi!’
          ‘So they had to find something Dinosaur had done which offended the law?’
          ‘Exactly,’ I said.
          ‘So they had to set up a Kangaroo Court?’
          ‘You’ve got it in one,’ I said. ‘So King Chimbwi imported a genuine Kangaroo from Australia and made him Speaker. He’d got plenty of experience of being in charge of a Kangaroo Court, but he knew nothing about parliamentary procedure.’
          ‘A marvellous choice,’ Thoko laughed.
          ‘Perfect,’ I agreed. ‘So there all the animals were, around the Watering Hole. On one side sat all the animals of the Parasitic Front, the PF.’
          ‘Were they all parasites?’ laughed Thoko.
          ‘Not only that,’ I said, ‘but they had many other parasites living off them. And on the other side sat all the animals of Most Miserable Disgruntled, the MMD, who were the sad remains of the former ruling party, the Most Mighty Dictators. In between the two groups, down one end of the Watering Hole. sat the big Kangaroo, trying to look like a Speaker by wearing a silly wig.
          ‘And so little Kapimbe of the PF rose to address the Watering Hole. Mr Speaker Sir, King Dinosaur is accused of misusing his authority whilst king to trample and destroy a maize field on dates unknown, in a place unknown, in the company of other plunderers also unknown.
          ‘Hurray shouted all the Parasites, Yes, we saw him do it.’
          Then up stood the Elephant Mutanga on the other side, saying This motion cannot pass, the Parasites don’t have a majority!
          ‘Whereupon Kapimbe paraded ten guinea fowl in front of him, and immediately ten crocodiles swam across the watering hole from the other side and gobbled up the ten guinea fowl.
          ‘Point of order!’ trumpeted Elephant, Is it in order to eat guinea fowl at this August Watering Hole?
          ‘Point of order overruled declared the Speaker, There is no mention of guinea fowl on the Order Paper, so that topic cannot be discussed.
          ‘Point of order, insisted Elephant, The charges against Dinosaur should have been considered by a Select Committee before being brought to the vote.
          ‘Point of order overruled sneered the Speaker, It cannot be considered by a Select Committee because I never appointed one.
          ‘Point of information persisted Elephant, the king has royal right of passage from his palace to the river in order to bless the waters. We have no powers to lift immunity in matters where he was performing his official duties, even if he happens to trample all over a maize field, which of course would be illegal if done by anybody else. We can only lift his immunity for an act done in his private capacity.       
          ‘The charge is amended sneered little Kapimbe,  Dinosaur is now charged with an offence committed between last year and next year, at a place unknown, where he did steal a bag of groundnuts, of which there is now no trace, from an unknown mouse, now deceased.
          ‘Yes, Yes, shouted the parasites in unison, We saw him do it! He even murdered the mouse!’
          ‘Objection!’ shouted the Elephant, We also have to agree that lifting his immunity would not be contrary to the interests of the State!
          ‘Don’t be silly! laughed the Speaker, as his silly wig flapped around his head in wild mirth, It is very much in our interest! Otherwise we shall all have our bums bitten by King Chimbwi. Objection overruled!
          ‘Mr Speaker Sir, little Kapimbe groveled, I beg to move the motion to remove the immunity of Dinosaur.
          ‘I declare the motion passed by a Massive Mindless Majority, declared Kangaroo,  And further declare the reputation and independence of this August Watering Hole to have been destroyed forever.’
          ‘So he had done his job,’ sighed Thoko sadly. ‘What was his next job? Was he then employed to destroy the judiciary?’
          ‘No,’ I said. ‘A kangaroo from Malawi had already been brought in to do that job.’
          ‘So all the institutions of the state were destroyed?’
          ‘Yes,’ I said sadly, ‘Before all this happened, Mfuwe had been a civilized country. But now, as we know, it is just a jungle.’


Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Raising the Middle Finger




Raising the Middle Finger

          ‘You can go in now,’ said the secretary as she opened the door, ‘Ms Sexier is now ready for you.’
          I stepped into a darkened room, lit only by a single red light which hung over a white satin couch. And there, draped over the couch in seductive pose lay the notorious Dolly Sexier, draped in a red silk dressing gown. ‘Spectator Kalaki,’ she purred, ‘I always prefer men with lighter skins. I can always see what they’re doing in the dark. What can I do for you? What are your preferences? Come and sit here, nice and close.’
          ‘I just wanted to talk about politics,’ I said, as she nuzzled up to me.
          ‘Sex and politics, all the same thing,’ she laughed. ‘There so much politics in sex, and so much sex in politics. Which one do you want? I’m more than willing to take either position.’
          ‘I’m particularly interested in the sex in politics,’
          ‘Delightful,’ she giggled. ‘A good choice. Let’s try a bit of foreplay before we get to the heart of the matter. Which end would you like to start?’
          ‘With your middle finger,’ I said, as she fondled my beard.
          ‘Everybody enjoys my naughty middle finger,’ she chuckled, as she stuck her tongue into my ear.
          ‘I was wondering more about the finger’s meaning rather than its sexual activity,’ I said bravely, as the finger began to explore other places. ‘The whole nation is wondering what you meant when you raised your middle finger at the Speaker. Some say you were pointing at the dilapidated ceiling, telling him it needs to be repaired. Some say that you rather fancy him, and you were beckoning him to follow you to your boudoir. But others say it was a rude gesture, meaning Up Yours!
          ‘Typical of you men,’ she sighed, ‘you are always trying to use your middle finger as a weapon to threaten us women. But if a woman dares to raise a finger at a man, he suddenly becomes frightened that the woman is trying to claim the power of his middle finger.’
          ‘Oooh,’ I said, as she ran her middle finger down my spine, ‘where is this going?’
          ‘Look,’ she said, when a woman raises her middle finger to a man it just means that she is trying to get him to stand up like a man. The poor old Speaker had gone completely soft and was a disgrace to his manhood. Instead of standing up for himself, and standing up for parliament, the silly old fellow had been behaving like a puppet in the Muppet Show, taking instructions from his puppeteer. There is nothing more pathetic than a man who can’t stand up for himself when the occasion demands. All the other men in parliament were so downcast by his inability to perform that they also failed to stand up for themselves. So I raised my middle finger, telling them to Stand Up!’
          ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I also felt sad at how they all just curled up and shrank.’
          ‘Not like you, Kalaki,’ she said, as she gave my ear a little nibble, ‘you can stand up when the occasion demands.’
          ‘I have had my moments,’ I admitted.
          ‘I know,’ she purred. ‘We were there together.’
          ‘So where is this going, ooh, ah, …’ I spluttered.
          ‘Try to keep your mind on the interview,’ she purred. ‘We women are able to multi-task, you know.’
          ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I was distracted for a moment by your middle finger. Where is it going?’
          ‘I am going to start my own party, these men are just useless. They pretend to be so much more powerful than us women, but when we need them to stand up for us, they just flop. First there was the UNIP, the United Institution of Patriarchy. Then came the MMD, the Mighty Male Dictatorship. And now, even worse, the Phallic Force. All of them with men on top and women underneath, and then the men just flop. So I’m going to start another party!’
          ‘What will it be called?’
          ‘I shall take all the women from both the MMD and the PF, and therefore I shall call it the MF.’
          ‘Meaning?’
          ‘The Middle Finger. And that will also be our sign. One middle finger in the air!’
          ‘And what will be the party slogan?’
          ‘Stand up for us and we shall sit on you!’
          ‘So the women will be on top?’
          ‘Instead of Women’s Day we shall have Men’s Day. I shall take the salute as the men march past, all raising their middle fingers, to show that they are able to stand up for women.’
          ‘So it will be matriarchy?’
          As she raised one knee I glimpsed a flash of succulent thigh. ‘No,’ she said, ‘we shall show them the middle way.’
          ‘Men and women will lie together as equals?’
          ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘Equality begins in the bedroom. And just as we unite as equals in the bedroom, we shall unite the nation. Bemba will marry Tonga and produce a new tribe of Bonkers; Apansi will marry Apamwamba and produce Apansimwamba; Muntu will marry Musungu and produce Muntusungu…’
          ‘Man will marry woman and produce humans,’ I suggested.
          ‘We must give it a try,’ she purred, as she held me closer. ‘We must set an example.’
          ‘But soon,’ I said, desperately trying to divert her attention, ‘the Speaker is likely to call you into his chambers to explain the behaviour of your naughty middle finger!’
          Her dressing gown slipped from her shoulders as she leant forward to run her naughty middle finger up my leg. ‘Providing me with a lovely opportunity,’ she purred, ‘to show him how to stand up for Zambia!’

              
           

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Geriatric Youth Policy


Geriatric Youth Policy

          ‘The next item on the agenda this morning,’ said Cycle Mata, as he looked around the cabinet table, ‘is youth policy. Tomorrow is Youth Day, so I want to go to the march past and say something about youth employment policy.’
          The Minister for Age and Fat, Chipembele Kambilimbili, turned to the minister next to him, the slack jawed Eager Bungle, Minister for Deceptions and Deportations. ‘What’s a policy?’ whispered Kambilimbili.
          ‘It’s what every minister should have,’ Bungle smirked, as he pulled his hip flask out of his pocket and took a quick swig.
          ‘You, Feckless Shambles, wake up!’ shouted Cycle Mata. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be the Minister for Employment?’
          Poor old Shambles woke up with a start. ‘What employment? I haven’t been employed for years!’
          ‘What!’ shouted Cycle Mata angrily, ‘I thought I employed you as my Minister of Employment!’
          ‘You definitely said Minister of Unemployment,’ retorted Shambles, now waking up and coming to his senses. ‘I’ve even got it on video.’
          ‘Never mind that!’ shouted Cycle Mata. ‘The question is, does your ministry have a youth employment policy?’
          ‘I don’t think so,’ said poor old Shambles, scratching his head. ‘I think we only have an unemployment policy.’
          ‘I distinctly remember,’ said Clueless Cluo, the Minister for Bribing Chiefs, ‘that we agreed on a youth policy at our previous meeting, in October 2011.’
          ‘Did we? Did we?’ said Cycle Mata eagerly. ‘What did we say?’
          ‘We agreed to employ all our PF cadres.’
          ‘I know that! I know that!’ shouted Cycle Mata angrily. ‘But I can’t say that at tomorrow’s Youth Day Parade! Give me a policy quick! What’s the use of having all you ministers if you can’t even give me a policy? You, Dr Phiri-Phiri, aren’t you the Minister of Education?
          ‘Good gracious no,’ sneered Phiri-Phiri, ‘I’m nothing to do with Education, I’m the Minister for Schools.’
          ‘Same thing, same thing!’ shouted Cycle Mata angrily. ‘Aren’t schools supposed to make youths employable?
          ‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘But we can take unemployed youths off the street!’
          ‘Same thing, same thing,’ said Cycle Mata eagerly. ‘How d’you do it?’
          ‘Well, it’s many years since we got rid of the Grade Seven leaver problem by putting them all into secondary school. A few years later we had the Grade Twelve leaver problem, so we put them all into university. So now we have the university leaver problem, the solution is to put them all into post-graduate school to do PhDs.’
          ‘What a silly idea!’ shouted Cycle Mata. ‘Give them all PhDs and they’ll end up as silly as you!’
          ‘And would there be room for all the girls?’ wondered Gender Wina.
          ‘This is Youth Day not Women’s Day!’ shouted Cycle Mata, as Gender hid under the table. ‘We’ve already done Women’s Day!’
          ‘I’ve been looking at the figures,’ said Dotty Scotty, as he scribbled on his notepad. ‘We’ve got about a million people in work and two million unemployed. Now if people work on average for 30 years, then about 35,000 vacancies will become available every year as people retire. This means that we can employ all the unemployed within a period of only 60 years!’
          ‘Is that correct?’ asked Cycle Mata, as he turned to Feckless Shambles.
          ‘Don’t ask me,’ replied poor old Shambles, ‘I always get confused by numbers.’
          ‘Of course it’s not correct,’ snapped the Minister for Internal Division, Splinter Kapimbe. ‘If it takes 60 years then all he youths will be dead before they ever get employment. And he’s also forgotten about the additional fifteen million people that will have been born in the meantime.’
          ‘Oh dear,’ said Dotty, scratching his head. ‘I used to be so clever when I was at Cambridge.’
          ‘I can still do arithmetic,’ chirped up the Minister for Food Shortages, Bald Sichilienge. ‘And I’ve got a simple arithmetical solution to the problem. We already have 350,000 self-employed vendors on the pavement. So if we increase the size of the pavement by a factor of four, we could have another million self-employed.’
          ‘But then all of the road would be pavement,’ chuckled Dotty, ‘with no space for the traffic.’
          ‘I’ve got a better idea,’ said Eager Bungle eagerly, as his red eyes lit up, ‘I could create 100,000 jobs by deporting all the Chinese!’
          ‘They’re the ones that fund the party,’ snapped Splinter Kapimbe.
          ‘Then how about,’ said Bungle, ‘Creating ten by-elections and recruit 50,000 into the party militia?’
          ‘We’re already done that!’ hissed Kapimbe.
          ‘I’ve got it,’ said Kambilimbili, ‘The answer has been staring us in the face! Just as every minister has five deputy ministers, so it should be in the entire economy! Every managing director should have five deputies! Every bus driver must have five deputy drivers! Even a carpenter must have five deputies! Then instead of having one million jobs, we shall have six million jobs!
          ‘You’ve forgotten one thing,’ chuckled Phiri-Phiri, ‘these deputy ministers don’t have any job, they just have salaries.’
          ‘I’ve solved the problem,’ laughed Clueless Cluo.
          ‘Oh?’ said Shambles. ‘What’s the answer?’
          ‘The answer is that we don’t need a policy anymore, because Our Beloved Excellency has fallen fast asleep.’
          ‘He was working very late last night,’ explained Kapimbe, ‘examining HaHa’s bank statements.’
          ‘But he’ll still need a new policy to announce tomorrow,’ said Shambles.
          ‘He’s completely worn out,’ said Clueless Cluo. ‘Call the nurses to take him back to bed.  Dotty Scotty will have to attend the Youth Day celebrations instead.’
          ‘But he hasn’t got a policy either!’ said Kapimbe.
          ‘He’ll think of something,’ laughed Clueless. ‘What will you say, Dotty?’
          ‘I shall announce,’ said Dotty in joyous voice, while raising one wrinkled and wobbly fist into the air, ‘that our New Policy of Full Employment for All Youth will be presented to parliament within the next 90 days!’




Tuesday, March 5, 2013

How Dotty is Scotty?


How Dotty is Scotty?

          I was on the veranda snoozing over my third brandy when I was rudely woken up by Kupela coming swinging round the corner and screeching ‘Brandy before lunch? What’s the doctor going to say about this?’
          ‘Aren’t you supposed to be at work?’ I asked.
          ‘I’ve given myself a couple of days off. I’ve just come back from Kalabo.’
          ‘What have you been doing there?’
          ‘A thousand things in only seven days!’ she laughed.
          ‘Congratulations,’ I said. ‘You must go and show Michael. He can’t do a single thing in ninety days.’
          ‘So what’s been happening here?’ she asked.
          ‘Much the same as usual. Dotty Scotty lying to parliament on a daily basis.’
          ‘What’s he said now?’
          ‘He said the tribunal to investigate the three judges is still on.’
          ‘Is that a lie?’ laughed Koops. ‘Maybe it’s the truth. I mean, he should know.’
          ‘You asked me what’s been going on,’ I sighed, ‘and I’m just trying to tell you. If you already know what’s going on better than I do, why are you asking me? Every time I open my mouth you contradict me!’
          ‘Oh poor Daddy,’ she said, giving me a little kiss. ‘We all love contradicting you because you’re so contradictory. And you do so believe in the truth! It’s all so delightfully nineteenth century!’
          ‘Look,’ I said, as I reached for the brandy glass, ‘Dotty Scotty said that the tribunal is on, when in fact the Supreme Court has suspended it! So what he said was a damn lie! Contempt of court! Contempt of parliament!’
          ‘Calm down Daddy,’ she laughed. ‘Did you take your pills this morning? Don’t you know that in politics there’s no such thing as truth, only different ways of looking at things!’
          ‘Don’t try to excuse the inexcusable old rogue. He lied. I know it and you know it.’
          ‘Knowledge is subjective,’ she persisted. ‘From his point of view, he may have been telling the truth. After all, maybe the government has just bought another couple of judges, and now has a majority in the Supreme Court. So he may know more about it than you do!’
          ‘He was lying,’ I said.
          ‘I hope you’re right,’ said Koops. ‘Because, if he’s telling the truth, then the situation is worse than you think.’
          ‘He’s always lying,’ I insisted. ‘He told the house that the Action Aid Report is nonsense, and the Zambia Sugar Company is not evading tax.’
          ‘I think he’s telling the truth,’ laughed Koops, ‘and the government has made an agreement with the company that they don’t pay tax.’
          ‘That would be worse!’ I shouted.
          ‘Perhaps so,’ Koops agreed. ‘But you forget that the point at issue is whether or not Dotty Scotty is telling the truth.’
          ‘I don’t believe him!’ I growled. ‘He’s completely dotty. He lives in a fictitious world constructed entirely by himself. He wouldn’t know the truth if it stared him in the face!’
          ‘Maybe he’s not as dotty as you imagine,’ suggested Koops. ‘Whenever he stands up to answer questions in parliament the opposition expect him to lie, just like they do. So when they ask a question they are ready with all the facts and figures that will expose his lie. They have all the quotations from his manifesto to show that the government has broken its promises. Then he answers the question by simply speaking the truth as he knows it. They are flabbergasted! They sit there with their jaws dropping! He has taken the wind out of their sails! They have nothing to say! The last thing they expected was the truth! He has completely out-maneuvered them!’
          ‘Sounds very clever. But do you have an actual example?’
          ‘There are lots of them. When asked about putting party cadres into civil service jobs, he didn’t deny it, he just said Yes, we didn’t like your cadres which you left behind. When asked when the government will clear the vendors from the street he calmly replies Since we have failed in our promise to help them, they will just have to stay where they are. When asked about bribing voters he merely says If they don’t vote for us they’ll get no development.
          ‘Such answers may be true,’ I said, ‘but they’re also very inadequate. The man is clearly dotty.’
          ‘Maybe not as dotty as you think,’ said Koops. ‘There may be method in his madness.’
          ‘Such as what?’ I sneered.
          ‘He is educating us to understand the arrogance of power. And he’s preparing us for the day when he will just stand there and tell the house that another thirty members of the opposition have been appointed deputy ministers, so the ruling party now has a two-thirds majority, and the new one-party constitution will be pushed through next week.’
          ‘That would be terrible!’ I gasped.
          ‘But the question,’ said Koops, ‘is whether it would be the truth.’
          ‘So you think Dotty Scotty is not dotty after all?’
          ‘Not at all,’ said Koops. ‘Unlike his wife Lotty Scotty, she’s gone completely dotty.’
          ‘Oh dear, what’s she done?’
          ‘She’s just been railing against the male sexist culture of uttering vicious and derogatory remarks against women, which she says is disgusting.’
          ‘What’s dotty about that?’ I asked. ‘Isn’t it the truth?’
          ‘It’s very true,’ said Koops. ‘And very dotty. She’s putting herself in a very dangerous position.’
          ‘How’s that?’ I wondered.
          ‘She spoke without the protection of parliamentary privilege. To speak the truth in public can be very dangerous.’