The country’s political circus is proof that, finally, there’s a project that unites us across party and racial lines.
Ah, Chief Dwasaho! There comes a point in the life of the Gupta Republic when idiocy ceases to be an unfortunate occurrence and becomes the organising principle of the state. I fear, my leader, that we have arrived.
Idiocy is everywhere. Democratised. Decentralised. Fully inclusive.
If we were serious about transformation, we would celebrate this achievement. South Africans of every race, political persuasion and ideological disposition are participating equally in one national project: making complete fools of ourselves.
I came to this conclusion while watching (dis)Honourable Fadiel Adams, suspended Member of Parliament, appearing before the Madlanga Commission.
Comrade Leadership, I have watched commissions before. I survived Seriti. I survived Zondo. I have watched witnesses forget meetings, signatures, people, money and houses. But Adams is pioneering an entirely new branch of jurisprudence.
The man arrived promising bombs. Not hand grenades, mind you. GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator big. Thirty-thousand-pound bunker-buster big. What followed was less Hiroshima and more Checkers Sixty60 delivering Windhoek Light beer.
By the time the smoke cleared, the arsenal had been reduced to profuse apologies, forgotten emails, mixed-up dates and the begrudging discovery that even his own source had been wrong.
According to Adams, highly confidential Crime Intelligence documents were slipped under his parliamentary office door. So much for covert technology. Apparently, state secrets now travel like takeaway menus. Uber Eats, anyone?
Then came the Madlanga Commission. Suddenly, the parliamentary laptop was faulty. Parliament disputed his explanation. Then came confusion about who he met, and where and how they travelled to Orlando police station in Soweto.
On Friday morning, 21 August 2026, Adams returned to correct evidence he had given the previous day. He apologised and said he had been ill-prepared. My leader! Ill-prepared? For your own evidence?
I understand being ill-prepared for algebra. I have spent my adult life ill-prepared for gym. But surely the one examination for which a man possesses the memorandum concerns his own life?
Then came the recording. Earlier, Adams wanted his January 2025 meeting with officials from the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption transcribed and placed before the commission because, he argued, it could expose inconsistencies in the evidence against him. Excellent. Play the tape.
Hhayi! By Friday, Adams was asking the commission not to play it. This is constitutional democracy as written by Leon Schuster: yesterday’s instrument of vindication becomes today’s unwanted exhibit.
Adams has also said he intends to lay a criminal charge against advocate Drushantha Ramsamy and complain to the Legal Practice Council. Comrade Leadership, when evidence becomes uncomfortable in South Africa, we no longer rebut it. We report its producer. Innovation.
Even Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga had to correct Adams after he repeatedly addressed him as “chief”. Quite right. Chief Dwasaho belongs in the opening line of this correspondence, not scattered around a commission hearing.
But, my leader, before we conclude that idiocy is exclusively a black enterprise, allow me to introduce the DA. The party has long marketed itself as the political equivalent of Woolworths Food: expensive, pleased with itself and convinced that everything unpleasant happens elsewhere. Then came Mark Burke, the DA’s federal finance chair and, until last week, its parliamentary finance spokesperson.
He founded fintech company Kastelo, now run by his brother Nicholas Burke. The South African Reserve Bank is investigating Kastelo over alleged exchange-control contraventions involving transactions of breathtaking scale. Not R200,000. Not R2-million. Not even the respectable R20-million that normally causes a South African politician to develop amnesia. The bank’s cross-border data gave rise to reasonable suspicion regarding at least R4-billion in transactions over three months.
My leader, now this is what I call alleged white corruption. I like it. The figures are better. The phrasing is better.
Black corruption arrives with R500,000 in a refuse bag, and somebody called Sbu. White corruption has architecture. Nobody arrives with a Woolworths bag containing cash. There are algorithms, cross-border flows, investment mandates, fintech platforms, single discretionary allowances, foreign investment allowances, treasury outsourcing companies and crypto arbitrage.
By the time the money reaches Dubai, you feel intellectually inadequate for asking why it went. Even the alleged wrongdoing sounds respectable. Put “money laundering” on your CV and Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi arrives on Friday. Handcuffs. Bail opposed.
Put “cross-border crypto arbitrage utilising discretionary foreign investment allowances” and Stellenbosch Business School may invite you to deliver a masterclass.
The DA’s response was equally magnificent. Initially, the party closed ranks around Burke. Then, one political panic attack later, it removed him from Parliament’s finance committee as a precautionary measure. Sounds like a step-aside rule to me, for liberals. Yesterday: nothing to see. Today: caution. Tomorrow: principles.
Comrade Leadership, this is the racial inequality nobody discusses. Our corruption terminology in South Africa remains hopelessly untransformed.
Speaking of idiocy as official policy, my leader, March and March, that Zuma undercover stokvel dedicated to driving immigrants back across the border, has teamed up with AfriForum. They formed a working group.
At this rate, AfriForum can bad-mouth South Africa in Europe and the US while March and March take Africa and the Middle East. No continent left behind. Efficient. Perfect idiots sharing a bed, then taking turns serving lunacy at dinner.
The Phala Phala imbroglio taught us long ago that dollars need not be suspicious when sufficiently presidential. Put them under a sofa, add buffaloes and a farm, and suddenly undeclared foreign currency becomes agricultural income.
That is the point. Idiocy, or perhaps idiotry, is no longer a party-political affliction. It is our political establishment’s most successful non-racial project: everybody qualifies, nobody needs experience, and merit is positively discouraged. We have finally built something that works across race, class, gender and ideology.
Comrade Leadership, idiocy has matured into idiotry: organised, institutionalised and apparently self-financing. It travels business class, acquires legal representation, forms working groups and occasionally gets elected to Parliament. No Treasury allocation is necessary. The Gupta Republic has already paid in full.
Till next week, my man. Send me nowhere near idiots. DM
This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.
