Mind your language

Shu, the struggle is real, comrades, especially when it comes to the use of our former coloniser's language.

Vera has just seen a government memo doing rounds on social media, purportedly from basic education minister Angie Motshekga.

Mme Motshekga, it would seem, is gatvol with her teachers for being such bad ambassadors for the country's education system.

The memo reads:

"My office has been inundated with calls and emails from concerned citizens of this country regarding the grammatical and spelling errors educators make on social platforms. I wish to publicly state that even though it might be your personal social media account but as an employee of the DoB by principle you represent us. Educators are urged to proof read their posts, check errors and send to their HODs for approval before posting them.

Ends

Minister of Basic Education

Comma-tose

If indeed the memo is from the minister, she has clearly had enough.

But the sub-editor in Vera would like to point out the importance of punctuation to the minister. She missed several commas that would have made the message crisp.

The burning issue... stupid

But the minister should be happy that, in these Dark Ages, teachers can still read and write.

There are people out there who have decided that reading is not
only NOT their thing, but that they would now make it their mission to burn books.

These are the folks from a fiefdom known as Free State where a man named after a gambling card, one Ace Magashule, remains their Alfa and Omega. They were so offended by Pieter-Louis Myburgh's book Gangster State: UnravellingAce Magashule's Web of Capture that they apparently spent a fortune buying copies of it with the aim of burning them.

Vera is thinking of writing her own book. She'll call it A Dummies Guide To Making Journalist Rich By Buying Out Copies of His Book In Protest - Radical Economic Transformation.

Short memories

Vera was amused to hear communist leader Blade Nzimande and the ANC chief whip being among the most vocal critics of the plans by the Ace Youth League to burn copies of the book.

Doing so would be against freedom of speech, they said, and
expose Magashule's fans for their anti-intellectualism.

Good point comrades, but weren't you the same guys chanting "Don't Buy City Press, Don't Buy!" back in those days when you still regarded Msholozi as your friend and Mzansi's version of Brazil's Lula?

Another Lula bye

Speaking of Lula, there is a new party in town. The Socialist Workers' Revolutionary Party, headed by Numsa boss Irvin Jim, who used to believe that Zwelinzima Vavi would give Mzansi its own "Lula Moment". It would seem that Jim has decided that he can't trust Vavi with this movie and would rather play Lula himself.

Too much money for Jim

That's all well and good, but the problem is that - with all that Numsa money and membership - Jim may not even make it to parliament. His party's branding is too close to that of the Economic Freedom Fighters and every time Vera sees their posters all she sees is Son of The Soil. So basically the Jim campaign would end up in votes for the Red Berets.

Go big or go home?

Hlaudi Motsoeneng hired an entire stadium for a rally that could have been held in someone's carport.