A State of Confusion

Last Friday a friend sent me a text message which caught me completely by surprise. It said:

“I love you! Sorry I have been keeping it for too long but needed to let it go.”

This unexpected confession left me speechless and while I was debating how I could possibly respond to it, I received another message:

“Happy April Fool’s Day!”

Needless to say I was quite relieved!

But while I hardly ever remember April Fool’s Day, many people enjoy playing jokes on each other and some of the best ones come from journalists and companies.

This year, Ryanair announced that it would introduce “child-free flights” so that travellers could “avoid other people’s children”; IKEA revealed its new Dog Highchair (€59, dog not included); TV channel SuperSports reported that the Formula 1 would come to South Africa to compensate for the withdrawal of the Bahrain Grand Prix; and BMW launched the new M3Bakkie.

These stories may leave you baffled and confused for a few minutes, but very soon you will realise that someone played an April Fool’s Joke on you.

Sadly, ten days after April 1st, I am still not sure whether an article published in South Africa'a Mail & Guardian was meant to be a joke or not. The paper quoted Julius Malema, President of the ANC Youth League, saying that:

"We need fearless leaders. We cannot achieve much if we have the leadership that is scared of the Queen, who are scared of the West. We need leaders like Fidel Castro, leaders like [Zimbabwean President] Mugabe who can stand against the West.”

When I first saw the article, I immediately thought that it was a joke. But then I started thinking about it and really wasn’t so sure anymore. After all, Julius is well known for making stupid and controversial statements alike...

“You don’t need qualifications to lead the ANC.”

“We are tired of a two-thirds majority. Our aim is a ‘three-thirds’ majority.”

“I don’t know what’s happening with Nando’s. We are running this country and we cannot be concerned about chickens.”

“We are in a political laboratory; never blame us if we make mistakes, we are just learning.”

And when asked by a 3rd year student whether he would kill himself if he failed Matric, Julius replied

"Me kill myself, I would rather commit suicide!”

So the fact that something is stupid, controversial and doesn’t make any sense at all really should not be taken as an argument that Julius Malema did not say it…

I still don’t know if this article was supposed to be an April Fool’s Joke or not. But fortunately (or unfortunately?) I am not alone: John Porter, who posted a comment on the article, is also left confused and wondering:

Is this an April Fool's joke? With Malema and the ANC Youth League, it's hard to tell.