The Zulus considered that
the greatest honour that they could give to a person was never to mention his
name. I draw this information from my
childhood reading of King Solomon’s Mines
by Rider Haggard - a book, I might add that I heartily recommend, not for its
implicit and explicit racism and colonial assumptions, but rather for some
excellent characters like Gagool the witch and for being a damn good yarn. I, and the greater part of the world, am not
Zulu. Never to mention a person’s name
is not seen as an honour, but as a distinct mode of contempt.
I am adopting this
approach to the Orange Holder of the Post of President of the United
States. That arrogant narcissist sets
such store by his fabricated name (seemingly oblivious to the fact that, in
English slang it means ‘fart’) that to deny its use is obviously hurtful to his
thin-skinned sensibility. From this time,
onwards I will refer to him as ‘45’ (as the 45th holder of his
position) and I encourage all those thinking people who are offended by any or
all of his spiteful pronouncements to join me in limiting the space given to
his odious name. You might look here
about this attitude:
Thinking about the
attitude of 45, I was reminded of the novel Catch-22
(which everyone in the world should read at least once) and in particular his resemblance
to one character in that crushingly funny book, especially in Chapter 21,
General Dreedle.
He is described as “a
blunt, chunky, barrel-chested man . . . His nose was squat and red, and he had
lumpy white, bunched-up eyelids circling his small gray eyes like haloes of
bacon fat.” He is also, coincidentally,
accompanied by his son-in-law “That bastard” as he complains to everyone, “Everything
he’s got he owes to me. I made him, that
lousy son of a bitch! He hasn’t got
brains enough to get ahead on his own.”
The parallels do not stop
there. One of the funniest-unfunny parts
involving General Dreedle is when, during an army briefing the airmen start
moaning with desire about the General’s astonishingly beautiful companion (!)
until ordered into silence by the General, “his great, red domineering face . .
. gnarled with perplexity and oaken with awesome resolution . . . his eyes
glaring with disapproval”. A hapless
Major lets out an involuntary moan of frustration at something else entirely and
the General’s response is to demand, “Take him out and shoot him.”
It is at this point that
Colonel Moodus (the General’s son-in-law)
“stepped out diffidently toward General Dreedle with a
sickly air of self-sacrifice. ‘I think
you’d better wait a minute, Dad,’ he suggested hesitantly. ‘I don’t think you can shoot him.’
General Dreedle was infuriated by his intervention. ‘Who the hell says I can’t? he thundered
pugnaciously in a voice loud enough to rattle the whole building. Colonel Moodus, his face flushing with
embarrassment, bent close to whisper into his ear. ‘Why the hell can’t I? General Dreedle
bellowed. Colonel Moodus whispered some
more. ‘You mean I can’t shoot anyone I
want to?’ General Dreedle demanded with
uncompromising indignation. He pricked
up his ears with interest as Colonel Moodus continued whispering. ‘Is that a fact?’ he inquired, his rage tamed
by curiosity.”
Far be it from me to point
out similarities between the bellowing of General Dreedle and 45’s fury at the
interruption of his racist programme via presidential edict and his ranting
against the judges who have a constitution role in the government of the
country – but I think it holds.
45 has no conception of
the different strands of government and considers that his powers are directly
linked to those of an emperor! One only
hopes that 45 will be restrained from testing his supposed powers to the
breaking point!
