The Year 2010 In Quotes
by Andrew Donaldson & Mandy Rossouw
(Kwela Books, R129.95)
What do you get when you cross a columnist, a deputy political editor of a newspaper and an overview of 2010 in quotes? The answer is a cocktail of humour, controversy, candour and sometimes perplexity.
This title looks at what some of our politicians, judges, lawyers and Fifa friends had to say about the goings-on in South Africa during 2010. To a great degree, it points to how much drama takes place in politics. Halfway through the book, I thought national police commissioner General Bheki Cele was going to take the quote cake with statements such as: “SA police members deserve the best… The day is declared family day of police, we will dance and eat meat. If you have a problem, sorry.” ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu came in a close second: “My problem is that I didn’t know that you cannot drive in this bus lane. I always use it. In fact, I was surprised as to why people were leaving this lane and all of them concentrating on the terrible congested part.”
Then I came across a chapter titled The World of Julius Malema and Friends, which honestly took over the entire impression of the book. Malema’s statements dither between scary, random and outlandish.
It was puzzling to think that before I read this chapter, I got the idea that our country’s politics were at best slightly shaky, but showed a lot of promise. After reading this however, one feels our politics is in shambles, without a clear indication of moving forwards or in reverse. Unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, the book’s content is compiled this way. It’s meant to give you gradual fixes of political incapacity, mixed with a bit of humour, that graduate to a climax of, hey, what the hell is going on here?
It’s difficult to assess the approach taken by the authors in compiling the book without being raffled into the politics of it. After all, those people did make the statements.
The book will be most enjoyed by critics, cynics and journalists. Those not into politics will probably find it amusing. – Tshepo Tshabalala