I love that scene in the Bucket List where the poor but proud Morgan Freeman character quietly points out to the rich and arrogant Jack Nicholson that the coffee he brews in a silver pot and savours from Dresden china is made from beans shat out by a lemur in South America – well that’s how I remember it, anyway.
You shouldn’t sneer at Kenny, Julius, Noleen, Hlelo, Ntando, Gayton and their 4000 best friends at the opening of the ZAR in cape town on Saturday night – after the Met, of course Darling.
Previously, under Apartheid, many of them were disadvantaged. Looking at them now, a more miraculous transformation seems impossible to imagine.
The nouveau riche always feels it has something to prove; always embarrasses itself in the eyes of its better educated children. But South Africa’s new elite seems … almost Russian … in its consumption of the tasteless and conspicuous.
Picture the model dressed in a black S&M bikini. She is lying, anxious under the blazing lights and sweating under the make-up. Kenny Kunene’s peculiarly round head is leaning over her, his moist lips pouting in an “oh” reaching down to her belly and the rice and raw fish that is lying there, slimy as the evening drags on …
And the morally disadvantaged new elite roars its satisfied approval at this witty, sexy exercise of power – take back the night, we didn’t struggle to be poor …
Thank heavens for the increasingly twinkly and cantankerous – in equal measures – Gwede Mantashe (and, it must be said, his ‘desperately-clinging-to-the-high-ground’ organisation).
This is what they had to say:
The ANC distances itself from owning a nightclub
31 January 2011
The African National Congress (ANC) distances itself from sentiments allegedly attributed to the ANC Youth League President, Cde Julius Malema that, “Helen Zille is trying to close all the clubs in Cape Town, but this one belongs to the ANC”, as contained in today’s (31 January 2011), media reports.
The ANC would like to state it categorically clear that it has no interest in running a nightclub or in endorsing its owners. The ANC is not into nightclubs or partying, but it is a revolutionary movement.
We furthermore reiterate our condemnation to the act of serving sushi on a woman`s body, as this act is anti-ANC and anti-revolutionary. This act is defamatory, insensitive and undermining of woman`s integrity.
We therefore appeal to all those involved in this act to immediately disengage from it.
Issued by:
Gwede Mantashe
ANC Secretary General
African National Congress
You go Gwede Mantashe, may your voice ever be raised above the grunting and bellowing around you.
Nic Borain 