I am Independent’s group head for op-ed and analysis, giving me responsibility for content in that area. In case you don’t know (where have you been?) Karima is Group Executive Editor at Independent Media, a position that gives her ultimate responsibility for group editorial content across all titles and platforms. In them, I am decked in out in Nosipho’s rather tight-fitting black ANC tee, and Karima has on a white straw hat with the party’s badge on the front. You see on Saturday, while joining the ANC in its celebration of its 103 rd birthday, we’d taken selfies (or ‘groupies’, what does one call a selfie with more than one ‘self’ in it?) as one absolutely has to these days. I woke up to a veritable storm in an online teacup. What I woke up to was something that made me think I had unknowingly slipped through a wormhole and emerged in a strange new galaxy no, a whole other moral universe in which the personal preferences of complete strangers were deemed to have some kind of ethical hold on me. There was also a lot of work to be done, and I was exhausted on returning to Johannesburg on Monday evening, so I collapsed on my bed and woke up the next morning. We had to work on the Sunday, and in my experience the ANC is not a pleasant drunk, so we skipped the various after-parties around the city and went to sleep early. Instead, we (my wife Nosipho, colleague Karima Brown, and I) ended up at Mama Tembo’s Cafe in Sea Point after the rally, for drinks and tapas. Naturally, the ANC didn’t cater for the 70,000 crowd it says came to celebrate its 103 rd birthday, but this was just as well, given the previous night’s dinner. I must watch a football game there some time. It was my first time in the stadium and really, what a wonderful piece of art and engineering it is. I can’t speak to the quality of dessert, as I left immediately after the chicken, which must have been served at 11pm.īut the stadium experience was much better. Someone even denied my request for orange juice. Guests were ‘entertained’ by a flat stand up comic and for the main course were ‘treated’ to a rather dry chicken breast. The rally, as rallies tend to be, was lively and made for a great afternoon. I managed to attend the ANC’s gala dinner on Friday night and their rally at the magnificent Cape Town stadium on Saturday. I can, on occasion, be totally oblivious to bullshit, a point I will have to return to just now. If someone did try a racist move on me I missed it. It was lovely, and no I didn’t experience any racism. As you may know by now, I spent my last weekend in Cape Town.
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