Happy birthday my boy.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about you. I hope your 6th is a hoot and that you are happy and healthy.

I miss you terribly.

Jarrod - 6 today

My humblest apologies to Nando’s, my all time favouritest peri-peri chicken restaurant in the whole wide world. I should have known better than to think they would just bend over and take it up the peri-peri bottle neck without a fight.

In one of their most recent adverts, Nando’s touched the touchy Julius Malema who is the head of the ANC Youth League. The league and not Julius, Julius said, took offence and threatened with ‘militant action‘ should Nando’s not withdraw the ad within 24-hours.

Nando’s agreed to meet the ANC YL for discussions in what I certainly thought was a bending-over exercise. Turns out it was just another brilliant step in yet another controversial Nando’s marketing campaign.

To be fair, Nando’s addressed all the issues that the ANC YL complained about, namely disassociating excellent peri-peri chicken with Julius Malema.  I have to say though, there are many things much more embarresing that you could be associated with than the best peri-peri chicken on the planet *cough*cough*20%woodwork*cough*cough*.

Complying, in the Nando’s way, they re-released the ad obscuring the face of the Julius-like puppet with a pixelated circle and changing its voice with a chipmunk-like disguise. In doing so, they ‘disassociated the likeness of Julius’ and the ANC YL from Nando’s, which was their main request.

And that’s bending over Nando’s style.

Give it up for Nando’s extra hot peri-peri chicken! And Nando’s, sorry again, hey.

Well I’ll be damned! Here’s a South African political controversy that doesn’t involve Julius Malema.

5FM, arguably one of South Africa’s favourite radio stations, was fined R10,000 (a little over US$1,000) for playing a song in which lyrics the word Kaffir occurs.  But get this, the song is by a black artist, was played by a black DJ and the complaints were from white people!

The word ‘kaffir’ is the South African equivalent of the American word ‘nigger’.  As in America, the taboo-for-other-races word is often used by the black youth. During apartheid this derogatory taunt was the proverbial stick with which white people beat black people, and in the new South Africa, black people use the broken stick any way they want.

And, it seems, some white people felt that by playing this song, they were being beaten with their own broken stick.

Sung by Kwaito legend Arthur Mafokate, the song Kaffir was a huge hit in 1995 and sold nearly 150,000 copies, consequently becoming a dance-floor hit in South Africa.  The offending word is often repeated in the lyrics “nee baas, don’t call me a kaffir”. Idiomatically translated it means “no master, don’t call me a kaffir”.

After the song was played on 5FM during DJ Fresh’s drive time show, the Media Watchdog, Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA), apparently received 25 complaints about the song, and reportedly from white people. Hu?  The BCCSA said the song “had no place” in South Africa where “political correctness and sensitivity need to be practised”. The station was fined R10,000.

Here’s Arthur Mafokate’s song Kaffir. It’s a seriously low quality version (I reduced it from 7mb to 1mb) – if you like it, buy the album (or write to 5FM and ask them to play it more often).
[soundbite width="410" height="30" addy="http://www.1earthadventures.com/wp-content/mp3player/xspf_player_slim.swf?playlist_url=/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/play-arthur.xspf&player_title=Click%20Play%20to%20hear%20the%20controversy"]

My question is why would white people be offended when black people chooses to use this word? Does it open painful wounds? Remind them of the time when they were cruel masters? A time long gone, which will never return?

Unfortunately, as with all this planet’s atrocities, we can’t simply pretend that apartheid never happened. To learn the hard lessons it taught us, and more importantly, to never let it happen again, we have to remember and face it. To hear the word kaffir reminds us whities of what we were, not to say we didn’t change, but it’s a milestone – so we can look back and measure how far we’ve come.

Uncomfortable, yes? Hard lesson, that one.

For an indepth article on the discussion and the usual array of colourful comments at the bottom from equally colourful characters, see what TheTimes.co.za had to say.

Now the elections are over and the ANC has won (surprise!), words like party can again refer alcohol fueled dancing, cope can return to being what you do between parties and vote can again be what do you for the singer that wailed the least on Idols.

Moving on to the important stuff

I’ve long avoided Twitter in favour of Facebook, because I really didn’t see the appeal of 140 character blog entries. In limitless-bandwidth country Malaysia, I can upload photos and videos and surf my friends’ contributions on Facebook until I get RSI in every piece of cartilage in my body.

With Facebook I’m so busy connecting with my friends, in many more than just 140 characters at a time, that I don’t even have time to meet them for dinner or drinks.

Then Facebook shot themselves in both feet before cutting themselves off at the knees by wanting to be like Twitter. I, and I’m sure many other people who like to ask the odd question, thought ‘what’s so great about Twitter?‘. So that’s when I signed up – about 2 weeks ago.

Twitter is like what Facebook is now, except it’s a lot simpler. No f’ing quizzes for one. Videos and pictures are simply linked out via your 140 character post. Twitter is simply for short, concise communications in 140 characters or less.Wham, bam, tinyurl m’am.

And thanks to their own effort, Facebook is now seeing a lot less of me, because my Twitter updates can automatically be fed through to Facebook, meaning I really only have to go on Facebook every now and then to check for events, birthdays and new editions of photos – assuming of course I can find any of that in the mess they created.

Oh, here’s the important issue I wanted to address.

Do you twit, or do you tweet?

If Twitter was used by only dumb people like me, ‘to twit’ would be just fine and would seem almost logical. Twitter. Twit. Get it?

However, for business, and those who like to pretend they’re a little clever, do you really want to say ‘my company twits?‘. It’s like there’s a word missing between company and twits: are, employs, entertains, services, insert-your-word-here.

My point-in-case is this email I got from AirAsia this morning. AirAsia is a big, low-cost carrier who’s quite with-it. Except when it comes to Twitter. Then they’re… well, twits.

Twitter is the noise that a flock of birds makes. One bird on its own, however, tweets. Therefore, my fellow Twitizens, as a collective, we twitter, but as individuals, we tweet. So, tweet and win your way to Taipei. Get tweeting now. Pay attention AirAsia.

So to answer my own question: I tweet.

Now an even more interesting question is what do you call somebody who Twitters? Are they a Twitterer or a Tweeter?  There’s something I won’t lose any sleep over…

Oh dear. Watch out – here comes a rant. A bad precedent was set today, not just for freedom of speech, but possibly for Nando’s at large, when Nando’s bent over for Julius. Right up the peri-peri bottle neck!

Nando’s, the makers of great flame-grilled, peri-peri chicken and even better satire-filled adverts, made a delightful ad depicting a puppet being a doos. It was quite funny.  The real life character upon who the puppet was based, Julius Malema from the ANC Youth League, reacted like the doos that was depicted and threatened Nando’s with militant action, amongst other things.

It also called Nando’s in for an extra hot peri-peri flame grilling, during which it was commanded decided that Nando’s would immediately douse the flames on its ad and pull it from radio and TV. As if choice was on the menu.

Nevermind Nando’s, your extra hot peri-peri chicken still rocks and I will always love you.

Little Man Syndrome – He did it to himself

Julius Malema made a name for himself during the recent elections by insulting other politicians and calling anything that moved racist. That of course is perfectly acceptable, because he’s a high-up and black. He tagged himself with the puppet lable all by himself when he openly, and with great glee, announced that he was in fact a decoy for the ANC.

Ironically, decoys are often made of wood, for which Julius has an affinity. Although, not a great affinity mind you, as he only achieved 20% in his Matric standard grade woodwork class. Doing badly at school is no laughing matter, but the Nando’s ad is. But, the ANC youth league is a serious bunch and nothing is funny when you’re in the ANC (except how you can’t be prosecuted for crime, that’s quite funny even for them). They felt, even though Julius says he disagreed, that the ad mocked their great (but not in stature) leader.

It was thus unsurprising when Julius called Nando’s ad, using a puppet, racists. Being a product of the post-apartheid era, Julius knows the power of calling something racist.  South Africans are so sensitive to word “race”, that you can declare something a crime by just pointing at it and saying “racist”.  The Race Cops will swoop down and arrest the nearest white person when the word is even mentioned, because like Jessie Duarte implied in her verbal splatter, black people can’t be racist.

But I digress. Julius accused Nando’s of racism saying “in typical racist fashion Nando’s used puppets to depict politicians”.  I have to say; the Nazis, the KKK, even Wouter Bason; I’ve never really noticed them with puppets and I don’t remember the history books mentioning puppets as a tool for perpetuating racial hate. Perhaps I haven’t read History of Racism according to Julius Malema. I’m sure there’s a whole chapter in there about Puppets as the Tools of the Racist Bastard.

Lighten the fuck up!

Julius and the ANC YL, and in fact all South Africans need to lighten the fuck up. It’s 2009 – we’ve come a very long way and we’re at a point where we can look at ourselves and our fellow South Africans, and laugh. Not laugh at each other, but with each other. At our differences, because that’s what makes us the rainbow nation.

Black skin, white skin, brown skin, yellow skin. So fucking what? It’s part of your heritage, it’s part of your identity. You can’t change it, and you’re allowed to be proud of it and so am I. I’m white, I’m balding, I have high cholesterol. When you look at those characteristics it’s a stereotype – it’s hilarious, and I can laugh at myself. Get to know me and you’ll find I don’t quite fit the pigeon hole so well, but the stereotype is still very funny.

That could be true of Julius too – so why not just laugh at yourself Julius and leave our chicken alone!?

Let’s laugh together. And eat more flame grilled extra hot peri-peri Nando’s chicken.