PRETORIA. The South African government has defended Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana, saying his comments about Chinese citizens did not reflect that he was racist but rather that he was "medically an imbecile". It conceded that Mdladlana had been "completely unhinged" since well before he declared Zimbabwe's 2005 election to be free and fair.
This week Mdladlana raised the ire of opposition parties and human rights bodies by demanding Chinese citizens stop speaking Chinese now that they have been reclassified as coloured.
The minister was widely quoted in the press as saying, "They can speak Chinese, of course, in their homes. I have absolutely no difficulty with that. But when we visit them, they must also remember that they are now coloureds. What I know is that coloureds don't speak Chinese."
Speaking to journalists at the Union Buildings, government spokesman Bokkom Kiewiets said that Mdladlana could not be blamed for any racial stereotyping, as he had "the mental capacity of a golden retriever".
"He understands all sorts of commands," said Kiewiets. "'Sit!', 'Stay!', 'Roll over', 'Don't criticize Mugabe!'. That sort of thing.
"Where he runs into trouble is when he has to make reasoned judgements about things like racial classification, linguistic trends, tying his shoelaces, or touching his fingertip to his nose with one eye shut."
He said Mdladlana's stint as leader of South Africa's election observer mission to Zimbabwe in 2005 had convinced the government that Mdladlana was "not the sharpest tool in the shed", but that this had not been a problem as "Cabinet was pretty much full of blunt tools, and we needed someone in a suit with wet cement between the ears to rubber-stamp the whole thing for Comrade Robert".
He added Mdladlana would not be available to answer the media's questions as he was busy having apple-sauce sponged off his bib, and was then scheduled to be bathed by the Speaker of Parliament, powdered by his Director-General, and put to bed by the National Executive Committee.
Meanwhile a delegation of Chinese-speaking coloureds has demanded an apology from the minister.
"If Mdladlana wants to deal in stereotypes, we'll give him a stereotype," said the delegation's spokesman, Denzil February-Wang, of Shanghai Villas, Lotus River.
According to February-Wang, his study group had intended to spend this week in Confucian contemplation, with a short time out to take their grannies to the salon.
"But if he wants to come with this whole 'coloureds are such-and-such' plak, we'll be happy to pick him up in a pimped-out Ford Cortina with wild horses airbrushed on the bonnet, threaten to stab him, blow tik smoke up his nose, bite him with a gold tooth, take him to church with Mommy and Granny, then watch a Manchester United game on Granny's television, and then threaten to stab him again."
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