An open letter to the chief of the SANDF, General Solly Shoke

DEAR General, I got quite a shock when I saw you on the telly the other evening. I thought Magnus Malan still had the job. Like many white people, I stopped taking an interest in current affairs in 1994. However, I didn’t think for one minute that the new government would ever put a black man in charge of the armed forces.

Please don’t misunderstand me. Some of my best friends are black men. Well, that’s not strictly true. But I do know someone who has a friend who works with a black man and they sometimes go for a drink together after work.

If they ever had to invite me, I would definitely go. It would cost me a bit more because darkies aren’t so quick to buy a round, but it would be worth it just for the sake of good race relations.

Plus, if we had to go for a leak at the same time, I could see if it’s true what they say about black men. Just kidding! When I am at the urinals, I always make a point of not looking. Unless the other chap looks first. Then it’s open season.

Anyway. This is not why I am writing to you. I wanted to congratulate you on the magnificent performance put up by your men in Bangui, the beautiful capital of the Central African Republic. What was it ­ 200 men against half a million drug-crazed rebels? And we whipped their asses.

In fact, we have been whipping African asses all the way from Cairo to Cuito Cuanavale for the last 70 years. Remember Tobruk? I can. I was there. I personally took out a tank and a Stuka bomber and was on my way to give Rommel a swift kick in the nuts when a member of the Italian Motorised Corps advanced on my rear and I was forced to flee. Some effete little pantywaist by the name of General Klopper waved the white flag and handed the city to the Nazis soon after.

You will never be a Klopper, General. You are a Rommel! Don’t stop at the Central African Republic, I implore you.

We can take Chad easily. I knew a Chad once. He was a pushover. Literally. Niger will capitulate in exchange for three goats and a bottle of whisky. Algeria’s a bitch, so you might want to skirt that one. My suggestion is that you take a left at the Niger border and go through Mali. They only wake up on Tuesdays for an hour or so, which gives you plenty of time.

Then punch through Mauritania. Your men will meet with no resistance. Well, almost none. My sources tell me they should expect to be confronted by an elderly man with one leg and half a face. He is in charge of

Dthe government’s humantrafficking department. Give him two of your smallest, most effeminate soldiers and move on to the Western Sahara.

It calls itself a country, but nobody really believes that. From the top of a hill you should be able to see the lights of Casablanca. Once your men have taken Morocco ­ easily done on a Friday when half the army is at prayers and the other half is stoned on hashish ­ you need to regroup in Tangiers. Give your men 24 hours off. The whores are excellent and the opium even better.

I expect you will get a call from President Jacob Zuma congratulating you on “defending” all those democracies. But he is a nationalist at heart and will probably suggest that you move on to Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania, where the men can take some time off to watch the migration of refugees across the Serengeti.

My advice is that you ignore his orders. During the wild years, Zuma was the ANC’s head of underground structures and chief of intelligence. If he were a superhero, his name would be Supermole.

Forget Africa. Once you have taken Morocco, steal a fishing boat and get your men across the Strait of Gibraltar and into Spain. Europe ’ s transport system is effective and reliable and, with the right tickets, they should be able to get off and defend democracy in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Let them rest for a while in the brothels and cannabis cafés of Amsterdam before unleashing them on Germany. Once Berlin is ours, the world is ours.

Ideally, of course, we would help to secure peace and democracy in America, too. But that would mean having to fix our submarines and there just aren’t enough spare parts in the world for that.

I am something of a military man myself, having served in the illustrious 2 Signals Regiment*1. Our emblem was a little dude with wings. He might have also had a bow and arrow. Maybe it was Cupid. I don’t remember much from that time. Post traumatic stress, probably. Or alcohol abuse.

What I am saying is that you need more signalmen and fewer paratroopers when you next decide to enforce democracy in a country that falls two rungs below basket case.

Parabats love jumping out of planes, but you can’t keep them on the ground for too long. Once they have defended democracy for a day or two, you need to get them into the air and have someone push them out at 7 000m or risk having them become all listless and dispirited, which obviously makes it easier for rebel armies to sneak up and shoot them.

Signalmen, on the other hand, never sleep. They are constantly tapping, whether it be sources, Morse code or the sergeant-major’s one-eyed daughter. So the next time you send a frigate up the Umgeni River to bring peace and democracy to the savages of Lesotho, give me a call. I apologise. The uMngeni River. Old colonial habits die hard.

The International Crisis Group ­ based in Brussels, in case you think it is a bunch of crack addicts based in Muizenberg ­ described the Central African Republic as a “phantom state”. Listen to me, General. Forget about rearming. You need to rebrand. Your unit in Bangui? They are no longer paratroopers. They are Ghostbusters. You can thank me later.

Looters and gunmen are roaming the streets of Bangui as we speak. Perhaps we should send in ADT. They deal with this kind of thing every day of the week.

I’m ready to go, general. All I need is a gun and a bag of bullets. And maybe a cooler box full of beer. We can win this thing. Let the “training and capacity-building ” begin.

With acknowledgement to Ben Trovato and Sunday Times.