Will we ever remember a life before Julius Malema?

(Note: I wrote this two weeks ago, before the story about mad right-wingers abducting teenagers for “hate camps” emerged. Christmas came early for the ANC this year.)

Another year, another collection of South African insults. The third and final book is out in around April, but the act of compiling the chapters inevitably brings up questions. Such as:

Will South Africans ever be able to remember life before Julius Malema?

Will Robert Mugabe ever do the world a massive favour and die? Or will he continue to demonstrate definitive proof that the secret of eternal youth is not in fact, a low calorie diet containing lots of antioxidants, but the wholesale oppression and murder of your own people? The product development people at Olay Regenerist* might have trouble including that particular ingredient in their next line of anti-ageing face serums.

On that point, will Zimbabwe ever finally disappear down the plughole it has been circling for the past eight years?

What is Ronald Suresh Roberts up to? Will he return to the public eye like some ghastly intellectual zombie, parading the rotting corpses of ideas long past their prime, such as the notion that Thabo Mbeki was ever fit to govern?

Does our former president ever feel guilty about the number of people, both South Africans and Zimbabweans, his crap policies had a hand in condemning to poverty, misery and/or death? (My guess: no.)

When will Manto’s new liver pack up?

Will the emergence of Cope prompt the ANC to go down the Zanu-PF route and scratch around in the past for a convenient scapegoat?

How will people like Guy Lundy and the whole SA good news crowd cope when – as is probably already the case – South Africa’s tap water is no longer the best quality in the world? And wake up to the realisation that an awful lot of those positive facts about SA – like cheap, reliable electricity — were actually, embarrassingly, remnants of apartheid-era infrastructure and management?

Will those right-wing nutcases out in the Platteland stockpiling weapons – I’ve met a couple of them in my time – ever get the full-on race war they tell people they’ve been waiting for, or will they simply get on a plane and fuck off to Perth or Calgary like everyone else?

When will Egoli ever come to an end? Oh wait, we know the answer to that one.

Will South Africans see the upside of all those massively inflated bank fees they pay, be grateful that their banks are shielded from the worst of the global credit crisis, and comfort themselves that at least Simpiwe Tshabalala and Jacko Maree’s salaries are covered?

Do the residents of the shacks of Alex look across the M1 at the Grayston offramps and say to themselves, “Wow, the changing skyline of Sandton means that there are so many opportunities here?”

Will Kuli Roberts ever realise there are only so many ways to say “All black men are cheating married bastards” and find something else to talk about?

What is David Bullard doing these days? (Actually, it’s easy enough to find out: he’s writing here.)

Will we ever have another Miss South Africa whose name any of us can remember?

* Did you know that Olay used to be Oil of Ulay, and was invented by a South African in the 50s? It has been a billion dollar brand since 2003.