OPINION

Not in my name Uncle Kofi (not coffee)

Kofi Annan, the flamboyant former Ghanaian diplomat who became a United Nations SG (Scapegoat according to former Iraqi PM Tariq Aziz or Secretary General according to the world) has developed an annoying habit of thinking that what old puppets should do is to rush back to their master and beg for a new gimmick to stay relevant. The world is a circus with one puppet master and many puppets in a hall called the UN General Assembly. I am a Black man who some hidden common sense would suggest I should be happy that a man from my continent (and the first Afrikan country to experience Uhuru) is trusted by both the UN and Arab League to solve an intricate human rights stalemate in Syria.

Now I need to put my cards on the table and confess that I have the same little faith in Annan as I had in Nelson Mandela throughout his reign and even now. I think the old man was given a statue in Sandton as a reminder of what he will never have. Uncle Kofi will get his at the UN someday.

Annan, those closer to history will remember was the chief of UN Peacekeeping Operations in 1994 as South Afrikans queued to cast their first democratic vote; a vote delayed over many decades by the United States vetoeing resolutions brought before the UN Security Council for apartheid to end. In 1994 while the southern tip of Afrika was in a jovial mood Annan was busy blocking efforts to reign in on the genocide that was taking place in Rwanda. With him on the corner was US President Bill Clinton who looked the other way when peace activists demanded that the US jam radio communication in the tiny Afrikan country since that medium was used to spread hate and call for murder. And some people dare call Clinton the first Black president - please!

Annan, regardless of numerous demands by the small UN Peacekeeping force led by a Canadian military commander to send reinforcements acted passive - leaving the final decision to the Security Council of an organisation so misrepresenting of Afrika's reality that it just couldn't be helpful. That apathy resulted in the death of one million Afrikans in at least 100 days. Okay, that's ten thousand a day; or at least 416 Afrikan souls an hour. Annan stood while a reporter from New York Times wrote that he was happy his ancestors made it out of Afrika during the slave trade because the butchery he was seeing in his 'motherland' was excessive. His article was titled Out of Africa - as a metaphor to Sorius Samura's documentary on the Sierra Leone.

The reporter recounted standing at a bridge in Kigali and seeing piles of bloated corpses washing down the river limbless; or machete-bitten. He remembered thinking he could have been one of those corpses if his ancestors were not shipped off to the 'Free World' to help build America.

And then the same flawed Afrikan went on to become the SG of a body which's Peacekeeping Operations he failed and had one million corpses to show. He became the UN Chief becasue the United States and its friends wanted him there after another crony Afrikan (or Arab) Boutros Boutros Ghali had failed Afrika and Palestinians dismally. How else to thank a sell-out Afrikan if not by elevating him to a position where he has absolute diplomatic immunity anywhere in the world - including his native Afrika. During his tenure Annan stifled the voices of Third World countries at the UN by pretending to be neutral while his position allowed him the leverage to provide political guidance to the world body. His vision for the organisation was always at loggerheads with what our then President Thabo Mbeki envisaged for Africa; a self-sufficient continent with mechanisms to solve its own socio-economic and geo-political problems. Mbeki envisaged a permanent Afrikan peace-solving tool such as the current day-Trioka, an Afrikan stand-by force for deployment to trouble hotspots such as Somalia and an approach to Africa's development that was not about the giver and receiver but building the internal capacity of Afrika to stand on its own feet, feed its own people and defend its borders and integrity.

Mbeki felt that the first stop towards achieving that would be for the UN Security Council to transform to the point whereby Afrika has two rotating (at the discretion of the AU) permanent seats at the Security Council. This would have been useful in ensuring that France does not conduct bombing adventures in its former colonies whenever if feels its version of 'civilisation' is threatened. Such a step would have required a UN Security Council vote which Afrika, advised by African Union would have vetoed and resorted to Afrikan solutions. Annan never took that to heart; he felt that the way the UN was, which is how it was in 1945 is fine. He shied away from curbing the growing influence of Muammar Gaddafi in North Africa since such a arrogance was funded in England and beneficial to the West.

Due to Uncle Kofi being in New York for sightseeing purposes today five countries decide who should be attacked and none of those countries is in Afrika or South America. Now, after his stint frustrating Mbeki, Olusegun Obasanjo and Abdel Aziz Bouteflika he came back home to a continent still suffering from an esteem problem. Here we were prepared to forget that his son was implicated in the Oil For Food programme; a capitalist-sanctioned Ponzi which resulted in the deaths of thousands of Iraqi children as sanctions meant for the regime resulted in the deaths of civilians while Anna watched. Lots of Annan's friends made millions of dollars out of the programme while Nato conducted regular bombing raids in the two no-fly zones in the North and South of Iraq.

He arrived home and suddenly Kenya exploded and given his unquestionable 'clout' the AU deployed him to Nairobi to mediate the ethnic-fueled conflict. Actually, with the benefit of hindsight Annan failed to understand the complexities of the situation. His version of compromise required a constitutional amendment; which means he couldn't find solutions within the democratic constitutional order that is Kenya. The land of Kenyatta was suddenly burdened with a Prime Minister and a President; a bloated cabinet and more money for the bureaucracy.

I would like to delve into his current role as an UN-Arab League mediator in Syria. Funny enough, as they appointed him and gave him his terms of reference; including his paycheque Annan didn't ask them why he was not relevant a year ago when there was equal carnage in Libya? There is a massacre in Afrika, they don't deploy an Afrikan to mediate but when there is a civil war in Arabia they send an Afrikan to extinguish the flame. There's something that is dodgy about the fact that Arabs (the original slave-takers) always need someone from outside to solve their problems which a third of the time are actually caused by the US. Can you start to imagine that the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate was once mediated by George Mitchell and then Tony Blair; all from the West. It should make one wonder if there's no smart diplomat in one of the Arab countries who understand the area, the culture and the politics better to bring both adversaries in the region to the table.

Now, Uncle Kofi takes the poisoned chalice and runs to Damascus to meet a man who inherited power from his father (Hafez passed over the baton to Bashir). He thinks he has the respect of China and Russia who he alienated many times as UN head. He thinks those 'rebels', armed and trained by Saudi Arabia and Qatar will respect him while their budget of $1 million a day 'to fight' Al Assad will disappear if they cease fire. He thinks that his trip to Tehran, which is something the US probably told him to do will shift the balance of power on the streets of Aleppo, Idlib, Homs, Hama, Damascus and others. He goes to Iran on the deadline of the cessation of hostilities so that he can provide the US with enough fodder to say 'indeed we were right that Iran is responsible for the carnage'.

Unce Kofi should know that he is not representing any Afrikan as he criss-crosses the world as a pawn of the US, Britain and France. He should know that his mission is doomed to fail because Israel does not want the regime of Assad to fall and be replaced by Islamists who will be sympathetic to Hamas and Fatah. He should know that the so-called Free Syrian Army is a bunch of individuals who some are not even defectors but Mujahideen who were based in Northern Lebanon and Turkey.

I look at Uncle Kofi with the same prism as that of Mandela. The old man was obviously overrated because he didn't tip the status quo when he came to power in 1994. He was loved because what we fought for for many years will never be achieved. He was probably fighting for something different to what we were all fighting for. Eighteen years later we are still fighting for economic freedom, which is an ideal Mandela signed off during the CODESA negotiation and concealed in the controversial Sunset Clauses. So, instead of obsessing with Arabia, Kofi like Mandela should remember that whatever 'achievement' he notches he will never be mentioned in the same breath as Marcus Garvey, Franz Fanon, Julius Mualimu Nyerere, Robert Mugabe, Agosthino Neto, Patrice Lumumba, Samuel Nujoma, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, Steve Biko, King Shakal, Thabo Mbeki etc. He will always be remembered as the man who babysat the genocide of one million Afrikans; sugar-coated an ethnic genocide in Kenya, blocked the transformation of the UN, monitored the removal of Jean Bertrand Aristide in Haiti, the poisoning of Yasser Arafat, the suffocation of the Palestinian population etc.

To Uncle Kofi, there's more trouble in Afrika than the Middle East; leave that mess to those who caused it. Mali awaits at home!

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PARODY

Another Production from Azaniawood!

The Rise and Fall of Thabo Mbeki
Starring: Thabo Mbeki, Julius Malema, Gwede Mantashe and Jacob Zuma
Screenplay by: Julius Malema
Directed by: Tokyo Sexwale and Matthews Phosa
Produced by: The new ANC National Executive Committee
Executive Producer: Chancellor House Films

There’s an interesting storyline I swear I heard about Julius Malema. You see what has been happening in South Afrika this year is stuff that science fiction, espionage, romance, dramas and comedies are made of. I am also one of those thinking of hooking up a script about some of them and see if I can’t clock good moolah at the South Afrikan box office to make Mr. Bones look like a Noliwood b-grader titled Mr. Ibu.

I was saying there’s an intriguing storyline that I heard about Julius Malema that I pray does not lead to me and the people who leaked it to me facing lawsuits worth R7 million from the ANC Youth League president. But it’s nothing demeaning or attacking his dignity but more opinionated like Zapiro’s Lady Justice rape cartoon.

The storyline goes on like after nine months of calling for Thabo Mbeki’s head Julius was finally presented with it on a silver platter by ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe, who, like a good waiter at an upmarket restaurant was not marveling at the beauty on the platter since it was going to be accompanied by a phat bill.

The story goes on to say that the tray was so overflowing with blood and the grey-haired head of the former head of the republic which was slumped and sunken in the offensive liquid. The eyes were innocently closed and withdrawn. Julius refused to accept and returned it to Mantashe, reasoning to the SC that when he called for the head of the ANC aristocrat he was unaware that it will bleed that much, denying the Blood Bank four pints of fresh blood. Coward! I hear you say… pardon the young man, he’s not a killer just an aspiring one.

It is said that the way Mbeki sheepishly accepted his date with the guillotine went against every script conceived by Julius and his brethren. If you watched the documentary Behind the Rainbow you would remember somebody talking about putting your vanquished enemies against the wall, blindfolding them and shooting them as a sign of ultimate conquest. That is how young Julius scripted it, with a grand finale to spill everyone’s popcorns but it ended with an anticlimax that usually sees moviegoers remaining seated at the end to read the credits.

They wanted a Mbeki who would be pushed out of the presidency kicking and screaming while they raised the rhetoric ante on television. That he left without putting a fight and denied them the opportunity to call for his disciplinary since bowing out without even a squirm is a sign of discipline was not part of the script – The Rise and Fall of Thabo Mbeki.

Mbeki’s feeling that he had to explain himself to the nation of 47 million and not his party’s bosses showed little regard he had for the processes followed to dismiss him from high office. What he was seeing was a bunch of folks who have reservations about the integrity of the judiciary suddenly basing their main charge on his charge sheet on the declarations of a ‘counter-revolutionary’ named Judge Chris Nicholson.

The story goes on, but next time we will interrogate; Thabo Mbeki – The Dalai Lama of COPE
Starring: Terror Lekota, Mbhazima Shilowa, Thabo Mbeki, Buti Manamela and Anele Mda
Screenplay by: Buti Manamela
Directed by: Blade Nzimande and Zwelinzima Vavi
Produced by: Young Communist League
Executive Producer: South Afrikan Communist Party

Coming soon to a television set near you! Always Better on the Smaller Screen!

OPINION

The Thabo Mbeki I know

Here are ten things that former President Thabo Mbeki is not happy about and which the Jacob Zuma led African National Congress and some optimists would like to sweep under the carpet for political expediency.

1. He’s not happy that his long-time bodyguard was killed a few days after he was booted out of the Union Buildings. He obviously wants to know who killed him and why. Module One on the Close Protection Manual instructs ‘never survive your principal’ and then the Assassination Manual instructs ‘take out the bodyguard first before you take out the principal’. So his guard being killed might mean they were taking out the guard first before taking out the principal (him). Like always, Mbeki will not talk about it, but he’s not flattered or taking it lightly.

2. Mbeki is not happy that he was recalled from the Union Buildings in the fashion it was done, with journalists waiting to hear the big announcement while speculating and then getting their speculations confirmed by ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe. Especially after ANC Youth League president Julius Malema has declared over the weekend that ‘by Monday Mbeki will be history’

3. He’s not chaffed that Malema goes unpunished even when he rambles a lot of inflammatory unproven nothings about him and his erstwhile executive. He remembers his ANC and Malusi Gigaba’s ANCYL, the synergy and respect that existed

4. The former president is not happy that JZ seems to be challenging him every turn he makes. He’s not impressed that JZ seems to enjoy humiliating him further while playing victim through all of it.

5. He’s not impressed with the ANC resorting to tactics of applying to have 3000 people outside the Bloemfontein Supreme Court of Appeal during JZ's appearance when it (ANC) is the ruling party (government) and the case is not about the ANC but JZ as an individual.

6. He’s not happy that South Afrikan Communist Party and Congress Of South Afrikan Trade Unions keep prodding him to disclose where he stands on Congress Of the People (COPE) as if they are not intellectuals and can’t analyse. He looks at the whole episode as an insinuation that he’s COPING without disclosing

7. Like former president Nelson Mandela he’s obviously pained by the split in the ANC (a home he’s known all his life) and would settle for nothing more than a reconciliated ANC with concessions from both sides – the Polokwane winners and the losers.

8. He’s not impressed with the little support he’s getting from the ANC on his mediation on the Zimbabwean negotiations. Nobody is interested anymore. He often feels that he’s being set up to fail so as to dim his legacy further

9. Mbeki is also not impressed with the direction the ANC is taking, of challenging every step the National Prosecuting Authority makes, like calling on Chief Prosecutor Mokotedi Mpshe to be called to account for communicating the NPA position of Judge Chris Nicholson’s controversial judgment.

10. Mbeki is not a happy man, and the optimists would make a mistake of thinking he’s taking his axing and the public humiliation he was subjected to by his stride but he isn’t. He also knows the reason behind dissolving the Scorpions and coming up with something that looks like a scorpion is not due to foreign intelligence infiltration but to dim his legacy and to create a beast they will let loose on him after next year’s elections.

Mbeki might not be a member of COPE but I think he appreciates the direction the politics in this country are taking. Less power to the ANC means more power to the people (parliament), even though he was content with being a dictator the nine years six months that he was president.

FUN

With all the tension that has surrounded the 'recalling' of former President Thabo Mbeki and the emotions surrounding it we felt we should actually have fun and cut the tension because no matter how people protest and start their own political parties the Afrikan National Congress will not change its mind and give Bra Tboz the country's presidency again. So, here at Kasiekulture, in jest of our friendship with the former president decided to sneak on his Facebook and see what has changed since last month's declaration by Judge Chris Nicholson that the executive interfered in the application of justice when it came to the case against ANC President Jacob Zuma.

Okay, don't worry that you can't find Mbeki's Facebook from your lame browser, it is only open to friends and we are those friends. But just to inform you here is what has happened since Zuma walked out of the Pietermartizburg court a relieved man.

1. Mbeki has commented on his own picture, the one we used above and wrote, 'those were the days, gallavanting Bushbuckridge and meeting interesting folks'.
He has also commented on the picture of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wearing judo attire, 'fit stud I see, how old are you chum?'

2. Mbeki's Friends have decreased from 1020 to 59. Deleted has been Jeff Radebe, Bridgette Mabandla, Paul Mashatile, Ibrahim Rasool, Trevor Manuel, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, Chris Nicholson, Menzi Simelane, Advocate Dali Mpofu, Robert Gumede, Saki Macozoma, Ferrial Haffajee, Deborah Patta, Andrew Fenstein, Charles Ngcakula, Tony Blair, Ehud Olmert, and many others. Some have been removed for obvious reasons while others it's still a mystery, like Patta and Blair.

3. Those who sent him requests for friendship but who can swear he's not going to confirm them as friends are Tokyo Sexwale, Cyril Ramaphosa, David Mabuza, Fish Mahlalela, Muammar Gadaffi, Robert Mugabe, George W Bush, Condoleeza Rice, Gordon Brown, Nicholas Sarkozy, General Siphiwe Nyanda, Panyaza Lesufi, Jimmy Manyi, Mervin Gumede, Jake White, Colin Powell and many others have piled up in his Inbox with no intention of confirming or denying them.

4. Those who have got a Facebook presence but were never his friends include, Don Mkhwanazi, Mcebisi Skhwatsa, Angie Motshega, Jacob Zuma, Zwelinzima Vavi, Blade Nzimande, Morgan Tsvangirai, Gavin Woods, Billy Masetlha, Tony Yengeni, Fikile Mbalula, Zizi Kodwa, Floyd Shibambu, Helen Zille, Patricia de Lille, Dr Irvin Khoza, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Matthews Phosa, Thulas Nxesi, Bantu Holomisa, OJ Simpson, Rudi Gulliani, Jeb Bush, Zachie Achmat and other leftists never found capital in being his friends and did not even confirm him as a friend when he sent them requests.

5. Mbeki's friends include Zapiro, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Kofi Annan, Mukoni Ratshitanga, Mosiua Lekota, Willie Madisha, Abdel Aziz Bouteflika, Olusegon Obasanjo, Sam Nujoma, Barrack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Paul Kagame, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Essop Pahad, Frank Chikane, Joel Netshitenze, Mathata Tsedu, Manala Manzini, Jackie Selebi, Hosni Mubarak, Silvio Berlusconi, Julio Chavez, Mbazima Shilowa, Mojanku Gumbi, Robert Gates, Moeletsi Mbeki, Snuki Zikalala, Lassie Chiwayo, Bill Gates, Patrice Motsepe, Jabu Moleketi, Geraldine Frazer-Moleketi, Tito Mboweni, Hugh Masekela, Ringo Madlingozi, Sibongile Sambo, Monhla Hlahla, Vuyo Jack, Mzi Khumalo, Danny Jordan, Sepp Blatter, Moss Mashishi, Vuyo Mbuli, Miranda Strijdom, Thoko Didiza, Nomuntu Lukhozi, Pierrie Buyoya, Omar Al Bashir, James Gulu, Andile Nkuhlu, Lucas Radebe, Michael Bloomberg, Donald Trump, Sir Richard Branson, Mohamed al Fayed, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Armond White, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Jordan, Eduardo dos Santos, Taban Lo Liyongo, Paris Mashile, Jabu Mbalula, Malose Kekana and others from the financial, sports, entertainment, political, economic and intellectual sections.


Our friends Julius Malema, Milton Morema, John Block, Ace Magashule, Thabang Makwetla, Sello Moloto, Beatrice Marshoff, Dipuo Peters, Makhenkesi Stofile, Robert McBride, Bhutana Khompela, Sam Nzima, Gwen Ramokgopa, Amos Masondo, Gwede Mantashe, Songezo Mjongile,
Osama Bin Laden, Pervez Musharaf, Yoweri Museveni and others do not have a Facebook Profile as it comes across as 'that other social site'. Others, whose names we won't mention are in the dark about what Facebook is and would opt for the old postcard, envelope and stamp to communicate. You know those guys who call an IT specialist to print their emails for them.

He belonged to the following clubs, The Sudan Klub, The Intellectual Discourse, The Presidents' Club, The Native Club, The Renaissance, SIS (Solving Internal Squabbles), The Finance Circle, Scorecard Forum, Afrika Unite, UN Security Council Inner Circle Squad, AU Shuttle Unit, ANC NEC (he's since quit this one), The Flying Scientists, Mayibuye Afrka, Oprah's Book Club, The Fanon Deep Thought, Kasiekulture Thought Provoking Sessions and seventeen others. He has since quit a couple of them that had something to do with his presidency.


On the Thabo Mbeki is... he wrote, 'on early retirement surrounded by Judases who are sharpening their daggers for a close shave'. Whatever shave Mbeki means is open to speculation. On his Relationship Status he writes 'it's complicated'. Here we presume he means his relationship with the ANC as he's married to Mama Zandile, with his party it's no longer a marriage I guess but an abusive relationship.

Mbeki has imported notes from Sunday Times, City Press, New York Times, Al Jazeera Magazine, Haaretz, Washington Post, Jerusalem Post, Baltimore Sun, The Sun, Sunday Independent, Pravda, Sunday Tribune, Mail&Guardian, Citizen, The Star, La Monde, Vanity Fair, GQ, MTV, Wikipedia and seven more intellectual sites familiar with the Washington crowd.


He has commented on Tutu's wall, 'way to go Padre, that's what a rubble rouser does in a sleeping society like ours. All is fair in war and peace'
Netitsendze has commented on Mbeki's picture, 'not a day older than 66 Chief, you look good'

And here goes Kasiekulture with our parody of Thabo Mbeki's Facebook Profile. Take it serious if you are as serious as this country's political leaders or just dismiss it as stuff thumbsucked by a journalist bored in his own mental newsroom.

DISCLAIMER: PARODY; NOT TO TAKE TO HEART

OPINION

We are South Afrikans!

Even without Thabo Mbeki, the music will play on.

Newspaper space on the Sunday of September 20-21 was wholly dedicated to writing the obituary of outgoing President Thabo Mbeki’s reign. It was time to audit his legacy and what made him tick like a Timex wristwatch. Some people have said this is a difficult time for the fourteen years old democracy. That’s what’s funny about democracy – often than not a good process produces bad results.

But as South Africans we’ve been through the worst in our short democratic life. We’ve been through a Third Force, a civil war in Kwazulu-Natal, Boeremag bombings, xenophobia attacks, PAGAD reign of terror and many others. We’ve been through uncertainties as a nation and there’s no way this snag will become a hurdle. We’ve been through the worst and we are still here – because we are South Afrikans and we are bigger than anything that can be thrown at us.

To repeat what Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille said in response to the ANC’s sacking of their member from executive power, she said Mbeki is the first casualty of the multi-billion rand arms deal. He fell, not on his own sword as cartoonists would like us to believe, but on behalf of the ANC. If anything in Andrew Fenstein’s arms deal-tell-all book After the Party is to be believed, the ANC which allegedly used kickbacks from the arms deal to finance its last elections was supposed to be the Roman Fool.

Maybe it’s time the IDASA proposal that political parties be compelled to disclose who their funders are and how they raise their bounty be considered with the urgency it deserves.

With the almighty ANC NEC having decided to send the First Citizen packing it calls for a new electoral system which empowers the voter instead of the party leadership. Maybe that’s what we need, an electoral system that puts the interest of the voter before that of the party. A system where the president is elected directly by the electorate and only they can remove him, either through a ballot or impeachment proceedings carried out in a representative forum like the National Assembly.

However if there’s any lesson that was learned though the whole process it’s that it’s not individuals who run governments but a collective of the executive, the national assembly and the National Council of Provinces. The president is just a celebrated head. Mbeki might be gone but he show must go on. Whatever Judge Chris Nicholson said, founded or not it irrelevant, Mbeki is a goner and with him went his ‘imposing intellect’.

ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe was at pain to assure the nation that their decision to recall Mbeki from his executive position was not to protect Jacob Zuma from prosecution but was done in the interest of party unity. Analyst read that to mean that with Mbeki gone, the Mbeki camp naturally closes shop. But the Mbeki camp is roughly 40% of the ANC membership and 40% can not disappear at the whim of two thirds of the ANC NEC members.

Again, maybe South Africans should ask themselves whether the interest of the party are more important than the interests of the nation, given the alleged mass resignations that are likely to follow the sinking the Mbeki dreadnought. Perhaps nothing makes sense – but I repeat, we are South Africans and we are known for our winning spirit in the face of adversity – and this is nothing compared to what we’ve been through already.

* At 19h30 Thabo Mbeki appeared on national television for the last time as head of state to say goodbye. He expressed his faith in the incoming administration while denying all accusations against him by Judge Nicholson, the ANC, SACP, YCL, COSATU and the ANCYL. Before him ANC Treasurer Matthew Phosa appeared on television saying the ANC had lost all faith in Mbeki while Mantashe tried to dissect Mbeki's farewell on another channel.

FEATURE

Demystifying South Africa's President Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki

What will happen if President Thabo Mbeki released a hip-hop album? In some quarters this suggestion alone will be considered a million US Dollar question. Or most dangerously, a course for treason. It's not. I know exactly what the repercussions will be if His Excellency took time off his heavy schedule of lobbying for his seat in Limpopo and leading us and the continent, hit the studio and bruised his tonsils over a funky beat.

It's not a R388, 88-cent question, but the answers still don't come starchy-crisp or minted. The way to capture its source is to take few steps back and retrace the routes of Mbeki's mystic. During former United States of America President Bill Clinton's tenure in the White House the US's sleepy Southern city of New Orleans gained much prominence. Word on the streets was that New Orleans is where American jazz was born before being adopted by Los Angeles and abducted by New York then rescued by Afrika. I started loving jazz around that time and even thought that the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz Festival was the best music event since Woodstock '69. That Clinton is an avid saxophonist suddenly made its sound hip. Not only did it degrade Clinton to a stature of a human being who engages in a little fellatio, lies through his teeth, plays jazz and sheds a tear, it made Clinton be like you and me. The Arkansas boy who grew up in a town famous for gangsters was reborn. All that dark aura of presidents in dark flannel suits and blue shirts who always tow an entourage of clean shaven bodyguards with cream white earpieces lodged in their equally dark suits was gone. Clinton was so much a man unlike the caricatures we endured in films like All The President's Men, Absolute Power and Armageddon. He was a president according to John Travolta, not Gene Hackman and Kirk Douglas.

What this suggests is that Mbeki also needs an image revamp. For most of us the last time Mbeki's mystic was partially unbundled was when he was "the mailman" just before the general elections three years ago. But still, one couldn't shake the feeling that even though he seemed to be walking alone there was some sniper hiding in the greenery of Tshwane with executive instructions to carry his orders to the letter. That's the Mbeki who's a quagmire, who even a horn-blower like Ronald Suresh Roberts fails to dissect into swallowable crumbs.

I think the starting point should be a national tongue in cheek debate about some of the old rumours. Let's feel free to speculate what we think he stuffs in his pipe. Television can invite health experts, clinical psychologists, tobacco executives, Rastafarians, the clergy (most notably fundamentalists), scholars and commentators like Dennis Beckett and Professor Cedric Gutto. SABC3's 3Talk and DStv's Reality TV should prioritize the subject.

Is His Excellency easy-skunking the holy herb or Boxer? One naughty US President confessed that he once smoked, but didn't inhale- funny heh Clinton. Let's quiz our own and learn more about him in the interrogation. No comments should be invited from his mouthpiece, Mukoni Ratshitanga, the African National Congress' Smuts Ngonyama, Government Communication and Information System's Themba Maseko or the South African Democratic Teachers' Union's Willie Madisha. We don't want to hear from any of the president's men. We want insinuations from comedians Mark Lottering, Kagiso Lediga, David Kau, Pieter Dirk Uys and Independent Democrats' Madame Patricia de Lille. (Okay, at your insistence we will include Madam Helen Zille) These are some of the guys who can blow their mouths like a horn and run their tongues like a VISA.

The next entry point should be his reported love for the Internet. There was once a time when some pundits referred to Mbeki as the Internet President. What will be fascinating to find out is what he does whenever those annoying spam pop-ups make their presence visible on his monitor while he's busy browsing the US State Department website to sniff the latest vomit from Condi? Does he find any humour in the skimpily dressed bimbos who violate his privacy or immediately puts out a contract for a high-tech spam blocking system, a firewall of sorts. Maybe he gets on the line and talks to Mark Shuttleworth in the event of strained relationships between himself and his former spy boss Billy Masetla. I find those pop-ups irritating, especially while I'm browsing ANC Today or the Orlando Pirates website and I figure out the whiskered one doesn't smile either.

What does a private jet trip with the President entail? It will be interesting to see a television documentary shot entirely inside Ingwazi (the Eagle Fish) over a term of six months and once again get to see what crisps does he bite and which internet service does he like the most while travelling 35000 feet at 800 kilometres per hour. What television programmes does he watch apart from SABC International, BBC, Sky News and CNN? What is his favourite Internet search engine? I'll put my head on the line and claim that he looks like a Google-man, I've seen his types at the Cafe. What does he think about Facebook, MySpace, blogging, does he have a blog which is only accessible to friends named The Third Term Blog?

A lot of dark stuff about the dark stature of President Mbeki is known. Funny that some sadists find trading gossip about his only missing son to be juicy, which we don't. They whisper that he hardly talks about him. He doesn't share his grief with you because it hurts, stupid. We know he's got reservations with the orthodox approach to interrogating HIV and AIDS. I don't find his views on AIDS interesting since there are millions of people who share them, including the Minister Of Health Mantobazana Msimang. Leave Mbeki's thoughts on HIV alone and talk about his poetry. Do you sense a ghostwriter behind those lines he likes to quote?

I know when Mbeki recites one of 'his poems' I'm inspired to write a poem as well. He' s a bard of serious note who the poetry fraternity would appreciate if he graced their Sunday afternoon readings in small venues once in a while. That would encourage every vagrant in Newtown and Nelspruit to find the poet in them as well. Imagine the financial spin-offs from book publishing, poetry festivals and performance fees. Poetry can even replace kwaito and SABC's Dali Mpofu can stop the payola scheme run by some members of his corporation - to accommodate the art of presidents.

When Mbeki tries for a drive at a golf course it makes me hate golf and informs me that I'll never get it right. I feel embarrassed as if I was the amateur with graying hair. He makes golf look like a visit to a dentist. I can't play a game with Mpofu under the guidance of Ernie "The Big Easy" Els at an 18 hole Gary Player designed course, which are some of the pecks Mbeki is afforded. He still uproots quite a lot of grass though.
What with all my primitive thoughts of a handicap being a physical disability and putting for birdie being a term borrowed from skin flicks?

Mbeki undoubtedly inspired my poetry book Journey With Me and Taste of my Vomit which are out pre-launch. Right now I'm hoping he can make time between his campaigning to grace the launch of Taste of My Vomit and "buy" autographed copies and quote my poetry during his opening of parliament next year. I want his inspiration on a musical recording titled The Ghetto Says as well. We've heard and seen ANC Deputy President Jacob Zuma and Inkatha Freedom Party boss Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi tear their tonsils and sing. Yes, we have seen Mbeki boogy with recording artist Solly Moholo which came out comical. I've seen him be all too intelligent to my detriment at Dakar, Senegal and the United Nations General Assembly recently.

I wonder what will happen if I had him on a session with Bra Hugh Masekela, Colesky, Thandiswa Mazwai, Gabie le Roux and DJ Cleo. What will Zizi be doing? You guessed right, he'll be lacing rythmes as a rapper ala Hip Hop Pantsula. And his album, The Renaissance Man Volume I will help cut the crime rate by half as every street corner dweller will find reason to outsmart the president in the studio. Since the album won't be sold but free downloads from the government website and ANC Today will be encouraged, think of all the financial spin-offs from the sale of bootleg CDs and MP3s.

PS. And the title track can even be the theme song welcoming visitors to the Interpol website and on the phone while you wait to be transferred, ask Commissioner Jackie about the possibilities.