OPINION

The Reincarnation of the Bullet-riddled Bullard

One of the smartest moves any Managing Editor of a large newspaper can do today is to hire disgraced David Bullard as a columnist and give him a custom-made column named Bit the Bullet. In this column Bullard can be as tongue in cheek as he wants and nobody will threaten to fire him while he should be firing himself for letting Bullard's vomit slip through the cracks.

Here Bullard can get away with lots of stuff without infuriating the Minister of Arts and Culture. For all he wants he can walk into the living room and figuratively defacate on Dr Pallo Jordan's mattress without any fear of deportation or strong rebuke from the son of A.C. Jordan.

Since Bullard bit the proverbial bullet at Sunday Times there has been a plethora of human and press rights activists who have been building careers cashing in on Bullard's misery.

Okay, for what it's worth that article was despicable and insulting. It didn't matter that it was written by a black or white it just was against the spirit that everyone is trying to cultivate in South Afrika.

Nobody wants anyone claiming that they posess a monopoly to wisdom, scientific discoveries and intelligence, which is exactly what Bullard's rant was implying. That slave takers are the best thing to happen to the slaves since Joseph migrated his whole family to Egypt to escape hunger was bluntly stupid.

But while the lines were being drawn I read in some 'objective' media, especially industry publications where it was alleged that his case was about freedom of the press and expression. Somebody forgot to tell the couch commentators that incitement does not fall within the armbit of those freedoms. With every right there is responsibility, something Bullard was reminded by a Mondli's boot.

Some compared Bullard to controversial Deon Maas who was fired by a Sunday Afrikaans newspaper for suggesting that Devil worshippers should be given the freedom to practise their religion without any prejudice. Okay, he was fired because some boer in the Karoo threatened to boycott Tanie's General Dealer if it sold the 'satanic' nuusblaad with Maas as a columnist.

But where to for good old Bullard and his dry humour? I tried to speculate along the same lines as where busted plagiarist Darrel Bristow-Bovey went after his disgrace. Actually his graph rose.