Evelyn Waugh’s Hippo, Die Antwoord’s Lion and White Malice Disguised As Charity

As published at SubStack and OpEd News, 12/26/21:



When I told a friend in Lebanon I was headed to South Africa, she said, “Say hi to the lions, monkeys, elephants and giraffes from me when you hit the safari beat. Of course you’re gonna go on a safari!”

In Cape Town, the only fauna I saw was of hipsters, fat cats, foodies, hustlers, trash pickers, smartly uniformed schoolchildren and one opportunistic pimp. On the edge of Grand Parade, its main square, I almost got mugged by three youths. Though it was wild enough, my friend wanted real beasts, “Enjoy your local travels and just do be careful what kind of ‘friends’ you make out there in empty bars. Oh and also, I still wanna see a South African ‘safari’ article from you (if possible)—wanna see you compare elephants and giraffes to humans heh!”

Nearly five months later, I haven’t seen any African wildlife besides a handful of parakeets and two or three lizards, with one boasting a long, spiky orange tail and an orange head on a slim black body. During a ten-hour trip from the South African/Namibian border to Windhoek, I spotted no animals but domesticated horses, donkeys and goats.

Driven through Wyoming in 1976, I marveled at hundreds of pronghorns. Riding the Greyhound through the same state in 2013, I encountered none. There are still plenty left, I know, but their population has declined, as human infrastructure encroached. Taking buses and vans all over Laos, I didn’t see one elephant, in the Land of a Million Elephants. In Vietnam, tigers were so feared, people called them misters and worshipped them, in shrines and temples. They’re nearly all gone. All species have been threatened but us, until now.

For a neat parable of animal die-off, here’s a passage from Evelyn Waugh’s Remote People of 1934:

At Jinja [in Uganda] there is both hotel and golf links. The latter is, I believe, the only course in the world which posts a special rule that the player may remove his ball by hand from hippopotamus footprints. For there is a very old hippopotamus who inhabits this corner of the lake. Long before the dedication of the Ripon Falls it was his practice to take an evening stroll over that part of the bank which now constitutes the town of Jinja. He has remained set in his habit, despite railway lines and bungalows. At first, attempts were made to shoot him, but lately he has come to be regarded as a local mascot, and people returning late from bridge parties not infrequently see him lurching home down the main street. Now and then he varies his walk by a detour across the golf links and it is then that the local rule is brought into force.

As railway lines, bungalows, roads, shops and golf links sprung up all around him, the big fellow simply maintained his routines while enduring his many new neighbors. While clearly obnoxious, they did express goodwill, or humanity, if you will, by not puncturing his huge target of a head with plenty of lead.

Abundant wildlife is the persistent stereotype of Africa, even if most Africans themselves have no experience of it. Windhoek has 350,000 people, Cape Town half a million. It’s safe to say most of their inhabitants have never seen a lion, monkey, elephant or giraffe, for there’s not even a zoo in either city. The Groote Schuur Zoo, built in 1897 by Cecil Rhodes as a private menagerie, was shut down by the state in the late 1970’s. A Londoner, then, is much more likely than an African to see an African elephant, rhino or hippo, etc.

If a Londoner comes to Africa, he will also jumps the queue to experience African wildlife, for safaris are expensive. In Namibia, a seven-day one will set you back $1,600, with a 3-dayer costing $580. After a long, costly flight here from the US or Europe, most whites will splurge on a 12-day safari at $3,120.

There’s a South African fried chicken chain called Hungry Lion. I tried it in Rehoboth, Namibia. Cheaper than KFC, it’s not as tasty. Its logo is a smiling lion wearing a crown.

At Wernhil Park, Windhoek’s downtown shopping mall, there’s a sort of hopscotch court over an illustrated shape of Africa. See, there, two lions, an elephant, tribal masks, traditional pottery and cave painting figures, all that have disappeared from most people’s life here. “Jump Through Africa From Namibia to Egypt.”

Next to Nelson Mandela, Ninja and Yolandi of Die Antwoord have become the most famous South Africans. Few remember Bishop Tutu, and even fewer, F. W. de Klerk. In a post-literate world that’s getting dumber by the second, Coetzee, Gordimer and Breytenbach, etc., hardly exist.

Die Antwoord made its name through a video attack on Lady Gaga, “Fatty Boom Boom,” which is merely a South African endearment for a chubby baby, by the way. The video begins with a hazy, vaguely apocalyptic shot of the Johannesburg skyline. Everything is brown and gray, with a barren field and a forlorn, if not abandoned, building in the foreground. South Africa as a failing state is suggested.

Many more stereotypes follow. Played by a female impersonator, Lady Gaga is sitting in a beat-up tour van with two gangster types behind her. All the seats have leopard print covers. A toy lion dangles from the rearview mirror. On the outside are decals of the head of a rhino, elephant, lion and water buffalo.

As narrated by a cheerful driver, third-world street scenes roll by. Peddlers sell on sidewalks. All pedestrians are men, interestingly, so no women and children. Slowed down, their gaits and gazes towards the van somewhat alarm. Normally, pedestrians don’t even notice passing vehicles.

To not disappoint, wildlife promptly appears, “Over there, we have some naughty hyenas eating rubbish. These hyenas, they make such a big mess! Over there is a shop owner, chilling with his black panther. Nobody is going to steal nothing when he’s chilling with that black beauty. Nobody! Ah, ah, ah, let me tell you, it’s your lucky day! Over there is the king of the concrete jungle, the lion king!”

Masterfully edited and with a striking visual style, “Fatty Boom Boom” is also a hearty joke on African stereotypes. Notice, for example, how the lion is crowned as “king of the concrete jungle,” though it’s precisely concrete that has pushed him to the edge of extinction.

Later in the video, Lady Gaga has something up her snatch, so must make an emergency visit to a “DENTIST/GYNAECHOLOGIST.” Vagina dentata indeed, even with hilarious misspelling. The dentist/gyneachologist is played by veteran comedian Kagiso Lediga. Showing no expression, the black man probes the white woman, thus triggering the greatest white fear and outrage worldwide, though the cunt in question doesn’t even exist. This Lady Gaga is a man. When she squirted violently, her copious discharge jetted across the room to splatter an open-mawed lion on a calendar. Mouth open but still expressionless, the dentist/gyneachologist extracts an African king cricket from Lady Gaga. There are many kings in Africa.

This scene is a quotation and homage to “Black Gynecologist,” a 2008 painting by a fellow Capetonian, Anton Kannemeyer. Cape Town certainly has an asskicking culture. What it doesn’t have, again, is any wildlife to speak of, beyond Egyptian geese and hadeda ibises.

Before Watkin Tudor “Ninja” Jones and Yolandi Visser became Die Antwoord, they were Max Normal TV, a combo that had none of the Satanic themes or symbols that would infect them later. Musical success in the West has a moral price. Paradoxically, they’ve joined Lady Gaga and countless others.

Unlike South Africa, Namibia has no famous writers, artists or musicians. Among its few rappers are Sunny Boy, D-Jay and Ella ChinaMan, so the snazz and swag factors here aren’t quite developed. Namibian gospel, though, is very distinctive and rousing.

On Christmas Eve, I posted on my blog a Namibian Christmas song, “Tate Wetu” [“Our Father”], as performed by the Mascato Youth Choir of Swapkomund. As is typical, men and women stand apart. Accompanied by three xylophones, two bongos and maracas, as shaken by a radiant, smiling child, they sing in Oshiwambo, “We praise you Father because you have created us!” It’s impossible to not be moved by such a flowering of love, grace and gratitude.

Walking all over Windhoek, I haven’t heard rap once, and I didn’t either in Cape Town. At least in these two cities, hip hop fans don’t feel the need to impose their taste on the public, as in the US.

It’s telling that the fiercest hub for African rap is Kumerica, as Kumasi is called by its hiphopsters. As Kumericans, these Ghanaians can feel closer to the coolest place on earth, with its violent, misogynist music, sickest porn, cultivated misandry, unextinguishable racial rage and gender dysphoria not just normalized, but taught to small children, etc.

For decades, the US has led the world in destroying bodies, minds or souls. Along with napalm, Agent Orange, depleted uranium, white phosphorus and gangsta rap, etc., there are now Pfizer and Moderna “vaccines,” which, triumphantly, Uncle Sam can claim as his greatest weapons of mass destruction ever.

Long subjected to white malice disguised as charity, black Africans wisely reject these genocidal toxins, so they’ve suffered the fewest Covid-related deaths, by far. Free from idiotic restrictions and fear mongering bombardment, my neighbors are relaxed and friendly. They’re still safely snuggled in normality.

Before coming to Namibia, I had little idea what I would find. On the bus up, an old Boer with large hands and no front teeth warned me about Windhoek muggers, “They’ll rob the teeth from your mouth!” Since he didn’t open his any wider, I couldn’t tell if they had taken his molars also.

Namibians, it turns out, are very mellow, and they don’t even curse. I have not heard one profanity in two months, so I’ve curbed my Philly lexicon. As for safety, unless you’re out late at night, shitfaced and counting a thick wad of money under a street lamp, you should be OK.

As the world suffers through endless Covid convulsions, I keep finding myself in normality, so I am blessed. It’s astounding to witness so much tyranny and psychosis from afar. If the majority keep swallowing official lies, this madness won’t stop. The tide is turning, but will it be fast enough, and what other weapons, biological or otherwise, do our collective enemy have in store?

By now, it should be clear why we’re being destroyed. To make room for lions, hippos, giraffes and billionaires (with their slaves and sex slaves), billions of ordinary men, women and children must be culled.

To those at the top of the pyramid, nearly all of us are superfluous, unsightly and annoying, so we must exit cleanly, with consent even, so they can laugh even harder. Though war as universal hygiene might still come, it entails too many collateral damages, such as pulverized bridges, monuments and art objects, etc., and the mess it leaves behind! Too much to clean up. It’s better to just unclog cities, flush all that grinning and stupid humanity down the shit hole, and charge them for the privilege. Deception is delicious!

Often, I’m mocked for writing about “losers,” or for being a “loser” myself, but only true losers speak that way. To be smug is to cut oneself off from nearly all of life, thus to lose in the ugliest way.

Injected, the executed grin in gratitude, then curse those who won’t join them. Annihilated, they fancy themselves winners.