History's cyclical tendency

THE superstitious among us will always advise us to be careful of what we wish for because our wishes might just be granted, sometimes with devastating consequences.

Some go even further to say we must be careful of what we wish for others because those wishes might just come back to haunt us.

Not so long ago - on April 8 2010 to be exact - a certain famous or infamous young gentleman, depending on which side you bat for, assumed the role of a master disciplinarian and lashed out at a certain "bloody agent" who had gone to the revolutionary house in Jozi to display intolerable white tendencies.

Visibly angry at the way the "bloody agent" was carrying himself at the sacred house, the young fellow barked: "If you are not going to behave, (we're) going to ask security to take you out.

"This is not a newsroom, this is a revolutionary house. Don't come here with that white tendency. Not here. You can do it somewhere else. Not here.

"This is the headquarters of a revolutionary party which has liberated the people of South Africa. It's not a playground. Here you come, you restrain yourself, you behave in a manner that is befitting of being the headquarters of the African National Congress.

"Here you behave or else you jump."

With those words the said "bloody agent" jumped and departed the revolutionary house with his tail between his legs, never to be seen again. As you know, history has a funny way of repeating itself.

It repeated itself at the self-same revolutionary house 22 months later when Cyril Ramaphosa, chairman of the Ain't Seen Nothing Yet's disciplinary committee of appeals, comprehensively rejected an appeal lodged by certain individuals.

Guess who, this time around, was told: "Here you behave or else you jump."

Fixing the Queen's language

IT IS pleasing to note that one of the creations of one of the country's most gifted wordsmiths, Fikile "Mr Fiks-It-All" Mbalula, is beginning to find currency in the South African lexicon.

Mr Fix-It-All, one of our best-known orators who sometimes moonlights as minister of sports and recreation, consciously or unconsciously contributed to the enrichment of the English language - Seffrican English in particular - when he called on the country not to "defocus" Mzansi's cricket on the eve of the Cricket World Cup last year.

Guluva's frantic search for the word "defocus" in some of the best dictionaries money can buy drew a blank. Despite this, the word has found its way into no less a person than Limpopo premier Cassel Mathale's vocabulary. The beleaguered premier, whose provincial government is in a deep financial quagmire as we speak, used the word - to good effect, Guluva might add - when he addressed his comrades at a Limpopo Ain't Seen Nothing Yet lekgotla a few weeks after five of his departments were put under administration.

Said he: "This must not defocus us from the commitment we have made to the people on the mandate they have given us to deliver to their needs."

Guluva hopes the editors of the Oxford South African Concise Dictionary - which contains unique local words and phrases such as diski, after tears party, eish, shibobo, piece job and Red Ants - are not defocused but taking note of this development.

• E-mail Guluva on thatha.guluva@gmail.com