An aeroplane flown by a one-legged pilot suffering an episode of climate anxiety crashes into a homeless shelter. A train whose driver was cross-dressing for the occasion and whose sequined dress got trapped on a lever veers off a bridge into a dam, killing all passengers. Five buildings, constructed by a company that pronounced its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion every minute of every day on every social media platform collapse simultaneously.
A spokesperson for the company – an angry-looking white woman with big glasses – emerges to remark that, as much as a tragedy the building disaster was, we should not lose sight of transgender genocide. Recycling is important too.
Welcome to a world brought to you by Daily Maverick’s People of the Year vote.
This initiative, brilliant as it is, should be seen in the same light as an incident that occurred at the Tower of London last Saturday morning. A bottle of custard was thrown onto the case containing the crown jewels by a group calling itself Take Back Power. This is the latest addition to the UK’s repertoire of disenchanted youth; because the group is aggressively diverse, Saturday’s theatrics were performed by a black girl and a white boy.
In a video posted by the group following the incident, the young girl – speaking with an English accent – introduces herself as Somali (“Henry VIII? Bugger that guy”), and announced the group’s intentions to “disrupt” up until such time as the rich start paying taxes. Note: disruption. She is entirely correct – insofar as this sort of activism has always been the preserve of college-educated, middle-class young men in the UK.
Who think exactly like the geniuses who came up with the Daily Maverick’s nominees for the respective awards.
In the person of the year category they’ve shat the bed – mind you, enough to stop them sleeping in it: you can almost hear the grinding of teeth it took to place Rassie Erasmus alongside Francesca Albanese and Zohran Mandami (“grrrr….grrrr….do we really have to give the peasants just one candidate? Why?”) Omitted from the nominees was Huw Edwards – the former BBC News anchor who was convicted of um, “making” the worst grade of child exploitation and his absence is odd because one of the writers ther…oh, nevermind.
Next we get to the movement of the year and discover, actually, this is what the awards are all about. Movements and activism. Custard and muffin tops. There may well have been a fight about the candidates – either, there weren’t enough of them, or we’ve progressed too swiftly and forgotten about last year’s, then the year before that, and most importantly, two years before that. At the risk of being all movement-ed out, they have included some frog-costume thing nobody knows about – akin to when celebrities make an ok sign then put it over their eye: it could be white supremacy, it could be child sacrifice…but it’s probably just steaming balls.
Villain of the year features exactly the people you’d expect from the brains of Rhodes BJourn alumni. AfriForum and Solidarity, Donald Trump, the IDF and – to emphasize balance – two corrupt, woefully inadequate appointments made within a demonstrably failed ecosystem…which just so happens to enjoy enthusiastic support from the Daily Maverick’s editorial policies. At the risk of dampening the mood and thinking there might be one or two other nominees worth listing, educate yourself with resources – chiefly the former statistician general Pali Lehola’s recent “Cat Matlala was once a child too”.
The businessperson – or businessthem – and sportsperson (same) of the year are perhaps the only categories containing evidence that this list wasn’t compiled in the company of nyaope, Chinese synthetic strain. Jannie Mouton has made a tremendous contribution, so he gets a pass from this round of smash the patriarchy – Stellenbosch mafia edition. Ox Nche or Sacha Feinberg-Mnogemezulu will hopefully emerge as joint winners, but the more active activists at the DM will probably select the latter on account of his late grandfather being an effective pamphleteer for the ANC in London during the party’s exile.
Next we move on to the sports team of the year, with the Proteas making the cut after having lost to India in the finals of the recent World Cup. No Springboks in the nominees, despite their extraordinary year, despite their being the very best representation of the country. In your best Jacob Zuma impersonation, of the legend reading out numbers from a piece of paper he holds, repeat after me: “in…the…land…of the deaf…the man…the man…with one ear is…winner”.
After the community champion of the year – for which, many congratulations – we get to the Artist of the Year, which is like 1999’s The Last Man on the Planet, except there aren’t any men, just Gaza and rich people hating on rich people. So just give it to Tyla and donate any platitudes toward the intellectual property benevolent fund for next year’s version of Take Back Power.
For the Daily Maverick, OBP used to mean “our burning planet”. This was in the days its founders would hawk their wares around London looking for cash from some wealthy Nordic family office seeking to atone for a wild uncle being involved in a speedboat accident that claimed the life of a young prostitute. But then Bill Gates went all volte face-like and Michael E Mann, father of the tree ring, kept on self-reporting, or being hammered in the courts, so they changed it to “our beautiful planet”. So, well done to all – now if you’ll just do something about all those trees you cut down in the Amazon…to make a road to host the latest COP failure.
Finally, it’s the OBP dirtbag and “moegoe” categories, in which we get to witness some exceptional class loathing – ordinarily rare in a country occupied by a majority of socially conservative moderates, many of whom, like John Steenhuisen, struggle with their finances, or get stressed and pile on a few extra pounds, or don’t have degrees – or, like Heinz Winkler, would like to explore some diversity on the opinion front. No good, I’m afraid.
And here, in this category, we find the purpose of the People of the Year: don’t think for yourself – it’s a dangerous, reckless exercise. Let us do it for you instead, and whilst you’re doing that, don’t mind someone accidentally pushing the nuclear button.
[Image: Harsh Ghanshyam from Pixabay]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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