CHINKS IN THE ARMOUR
>News report: > Brian
Hungwe, former Minister without Portfolio, Eddison Zvobgo and
> Mashonaland West governor Peter Chanetsa last week clashed
in
> parliament over the selection of party strongman Emmerson
Mnangagwa
> as Speaker, widening the chinks which have apeared in the
ruling
> party's armour, the Zimbabwe Independent has established.
Date: 2000/08/01
Professor Isosceles Vilikazi, the well-known
inventor, academic and political observer, has been asked to give
his views on the story that chinks are appearing in the ruling
party's armour.
Speaking from his home in Nyamandhlovu, the Professor said:
"I am astounded that a respected and independent newspaper
should use such hate-speech. It is bad enough that the so-called
war vets run around calling people vazungu and mlungu, but they
are young, uneducated, and, not to put too fine a point on it,
bloody savages.
"However, the use of the term "chink" is
abhorrent. Although there are not many in Zimbabwe, they should
still be referred to by the appropriate term, which would be
"Chinese."
"It is also in extremely bad taste - and blatantly unture -
to suggest that the "chinks" are widening. Frankly, all
that I know are really rather slim, in particular the daughter of
my favourite fast-food outlet in Forty Street (note 1 below)*.
"In any case, it is no business of Parliament's whether the
"chinks" are widening or not. No one makes comments
about a portly matron if she is Shona or Ndebele. Indeed, in our
culture, big is beautiful. The Queen Mother of Swaziland is not
called the Great-She-Elephant for nothing."
"Apart from that, I have scanned the election results, and
as far as I can see, no Chinese were elected to Parliament at
all, so to suggest that there are any chinks in Parliament,
amongst the ruling party or the opposition, must be pure fanciful
speculation on the part of the journalist who concocted this
rubbish."
Note 1*: Some readers may remember this important Bulawayo
boulevard by
its former name of Fort Street. The name has since been
Sindebeleyised, or
decolonised, or whatever, and is now Forty Street. It runs, of
course,
parallel to Fifie Street with the one in between renamed after
some bloke
called Jason Moyo.
All are famous for the major humps encountered either side of
each
intersection all the way from the Showgrounds down to what is now
known as Festy Street.