An Introduction to the 'Killing The President' article.
An Introduction to 'Killing the President'
There are legal threats against me at this time of writing. So keep this in mind.
Creative Structure
I got the idea of creating a simple first-person blog, of an assassin - with no help in hell of ever succeeding in his professed desire to kill the SA President - but still faithfully detailing both his preparations, his intent, and his methods.
The attacks were to become evermore stupid, and the 'assassin teams' that he called in, were to increasingly be totally insane and obvious bizarrely incompetent - thus overall providing both a good literary device to have the persona of the assassin detail his genuine angst over the political situation, mix this in with his equally insulting views of local politicians, and then overlay this all with the never ending Big Plans with Even Bigger (and More Stupid) Weapons.
Thus mixing sustained absurdity, gleefully dark humour, with insultingly vicious and deeply serious commentary and political debate - making it disturbing as hell to the reader - given the realism of the assassin's own viewpoint. Adding to this is the inability of the assassin to see that he's always going to fail (Thanks to the 'Acme Company' weaponry, recommended by a Mr Coyote)
That's the creative stucture described.
Overview
I wrote the first installment, intending to come back to it at some point and do a 'part two' and so on, and take another look and see if the concept had sufficient depth to extend beyond merely one or two entries, or whether it would become boringly repetitive.
I posted it onto the Mail and Guardian newspaper online 'blog site' (http://blogspot.mg.co.za ) which they censored within a few days. A week or two later - Military Intelligence/National Intelligence and the South African Police contacted the M&G to demand to know who I was. As I am no criminal, I contacted police myself, and agreed to a meeting, that the police wanted to have with me, for unspecificied reasons.
My Editor at the M&G - (who also runs the 'blog site') Mathew Buckland, told me to keep quiet about the story - and not write about it onliine.) As the pressure mounted on me - I chose to disregard this suggestion:
http://blogspot.mg.co.za/?q=node/1002
I managed to find the Freedom of Expression Institute, who are kindly representing me at this point.
It has been suggested that I am potentially to be charged with anything from 'Treason' to "sedition' to 'Incitement to violence'.
And all this, is due to a clearly fictional, satirical, and happily tasteless story I wrote online, and posted on the Mail and Guardian's own 'blog site' - for my own amusement..
Long View
I'm a writer, satirist and journalist working in South Africa. I took part in the anti-apartheid Struggle, and was prominent in the local entertainment industry, as a playwright, satirist and writer, at a time when few spoke out against the previous Apartheid Regime.
A few weeks ago, appalled by the growing death toll and social disorder, I created a blog article purporting to be a 'first-person' detailing by an assassin, setting forth his intention to try to kill our President Mbeki - and using this literary device as a platform from which to express and show the horrifying state of my country, via the Persona of this fictional 'assassin', himself disgusted and filled with a fervent social outrage at the carnage he sees.
This is the 'Killing the President' blog entry, here on these pages.
My newspaper, the Mail and Guardian, were contacted by the South African police and National Intelligence - who seemed to believe that I and this blog were a 'threat' of some kind, thus utterly missing the point of the satirical exercise.
I made contact with a non governmental organisation - the Freedom of Expression Institute, who thankfully have taken my case and appointed counsel, in order to help me in this early stages of what may well turn out to be a bizarre misguided attempt by the South African Government, to charge me with 'sedition' or 'inciting violence' or perhaps even 'treason'.
(An utterly ironic and insane situation, given that my purpose in writing the piece, was in fact to both lampoon, satirise, and alert these very same authorities, to the increasing absence of any visible democracy, the spreading civil disorder, and the tell-tale signs of a new kind of tyranny
in South Africa emerging.)
Currently, it appears that concepts like 'irony' and 'satire' - even though springing from the most selfless of motives (a deep concern for the state of the political and social order in this country) are appearing to being chosen to be 'misunderstood' by the South African
Government. So I would appear to be on the receiving end of the very self-same authoritarian indications and impulses that I created the article in order to point out, in the first place.
The original Blog article has been taken offline by my newspaper, and initially, given the police interest, I didn't want to put it online anywhere - but on reflection, realised that this is censorship of the worst sort; self-censorship.
So its here, in all its lurid, absurd, offensive and somewhat vitriolic sleaziness, to show that no reasonable person could take this for being anything other than what it is: ferocious and
blatantly misbehaved satire.
My own Blog detailing the police action, is viewable at my newspaper's own 'Blog Spot': http://blogspot.mg.co.za/?q=node/1002
And my overall Blog is at http://blogspot.mg.co.za/?q=blog/72
(Not that I write there much, anymore. Would you?)
The Freedom of Expression Institute, who have taken up my case, are at http://www.fxi.org.za/allframes.htm
And my own 'CV' showing a body of work beginning under Apartheid and stretching through to recent times, is online at: http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/orwell/93/aa.html
If like me, you also believe firmly in the principles of Democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, non-violent dissent, and that Democracy itself needs to be nurtured and protected, and not allowed to be handed over to a State, to then decide 'what' Democracy 'is', on its citizens behalf - then take the Killing the President blog in the spirit it was written in. An artistic and creative attempt to communicate some of the problems facing South Africa, in a way
that conveys the seriousness of the situation to the reader, along with big dollops of total seriously sustained absurdity.
I ask that you send letters or emails or faxes, to the South African Government, and/or its local diplomatic missions, requesting that they demonstrate to the world, their professed democratic principles, by allowing me the freedom of expression and speech, which I believe I am entitled to.
I ask you to request the South African Government, or its diplomatic representatives,to cease any further steps towards silencing or imprisoning me - and to realise that I am simply a writer, who was and is attempting, from a position of social conscience, to make his Government re-evaluate its own moral, political and ethical position - and doing this from a completely morally defensible and non violent position, using artistic creativity as my medium for promoting debate.
Charges at this point, have yet to be formally laid, however - expressions of Interest or concern from outside anti-censorship bodies, pro-democracy groups, and concerned Governments - may well be of use in giving the local Government here pause, to perhaps reconsider its actions, or at least alerting it to the fact that it is being observed by the outside world, and that it is taking
an unwarranted and unacceptable step towards supression of freedom of speech, in this new Democracy, and thus potentially is en route to losing those very freedoms it fought so hard to
achieve.
Ian Fraser
Johannesburg
South Africa
('Coincidentally', three days after my newspaper was contacted by the Authorities, a large scale
'burglary' took place - and almost all of my newspapers computers (around 40) were removed:
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=243020&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/
Links of Interest
Blog Detailing Police Action: http://blogspot.mg.co.za/?q=node/1002
Blog Extensively and Boringly Discussing my Reasons for creating the offending
article: http://blogspot.mg.co.za/?q=node/1019
My Overall Remaining Blog: http://blogspot.mg.co.za/?q=blog/72
There are legal threats against me at this time of writing. So keep this in mind.
Creative Structure
I got the idea of creating a simple first-person blog, of an assassin - with no help in hell of ever succeeding in his professed desire to kill the SA President - but still faithfully detailing both his preparations, his intent, and his methods.
The attacks were to become evermore stupid, and the 'assassin teams' that he called in, were to increasingly be totally insane and obvious bizarrely incompetent - thus overall providing both a good literary device to have the persona of the assassin detail his genuine angst over the political situation, mix this in with his equally insulting views of local politicians, and then overlay this all with the never ending Big Plans with Even Bigger (and More Stupid) Weapons.
Thus mixing sustained absurdity, gleefully dark humour, with insultingly vicious and deeply serious commentary and political debate - making it disturbing as hell to the reader - given the realism of the assassin's own viewpoint. Adding to this is the inability of the assassin to see that he's always going to fail (Thanks to the 'Acme Company' weaponry, recommended by a Mr Coyote)
That's the creative stucture described.
Overview
I wrote the first installment, intending to come back to it at some point and do a 'part two' and so on, and take another look and see if the concept had sufficient depth to extend beyond merely one or two entries, or whether it would become boringly repetitive.
I posted it onto the Mail and Guardian newspaper online 'blog site' (http://blogspot.mg.co.za ) which they censored within a few days. A week or two later - Military Intelligence/National Intelligence and the South African Police contacted the M&G to demand to know who I was. As I am no criminal, I contacted police myself, and agreed to a meeting, that the police wanted to have with me, for unspecificied reasons.
My Editor at the M&G - (who also runs the 'blog site') Mathew Buckland, told me to keep quiet about the story - and not write about it onliine.) As the pressure mounted on me - I chose to disregard this suggestion:
http://blogspot.mg.co.za/?q=node/1002
I managed to find the Freedom of Expression Institute, who are kindly representing me at this point.
It has been suggested that I am potentially to be charged with anything from 'Treason' to "sedition' to 'Incitement to violence'.
And all this, is due to a clearly fictional, satirical, and happily tasteless story I wrote online, and posted on the Mail and Guardian's own 'blog site' - for my own amusement..
Long View
I'm a writer, satirist and journalist working in South Africa. I took part in the anti-apartheid Struggle, and was prominent in the local entertainment industry, as a playwright, satirist and writer, at a time when few spoke out against the previous Apartheid Regime.
A few weeks ago, appalled by the growing death toll and social disorder, I created a blog article purporting to be a 'first-person' detailing by an assassin, setting forth his intention to try to kill our President Mbeki - and using this literary device as a platform from which to express and show the horrifying state of my country, via the Persona of this fictional 'assassin', himself disgusted and filled with a fervent social outrage at the carnage he sees.
This is the 'Killing the President' blog entry, here on these pages.
My newspaper, the Mail and Guardian, were contacted by the South African police and National Intelligence - who seemed to believe that I and this blog were a 'threat' of some kind, thus utterly missing the point of the satirical exercise.
I made contact with a non governmental organisation - the Freedom of Expression Institute, who thankfully have taken my case and appointed counsel, in order to help me in this early stages of what may well turn out to be a bizarre misguided attempt by the South African Government, to charge me with 'sedition' or 'inciting violence' or perhaps even 'treason'.
(An utterly ironic and insane situation, given that my purpose in writing the piece, was in fact to both lampoon, satirise, and alert these very same authorities, to the increasing absence of any visible democracy, the spreading civil disorder, and the tell-tale signs of a new kind of tyranny
in South Africa emerging.)
Currently, it appears that concepts like 'irony' and 'satire' - even though springing from the most selfless of motives (a deep concern for the state of the political and social order in this country) are appearing to being chosen to be 'misunderstood' by the South African
Government. So I would appear to be on the receiving end of the very self-same authoritarian indications and impulses that I created the article in order to point out, in the first place.
The original Blog article has been taken offline by my newspaper, and initially, given the police interest, I didn't want to put it online anywhere - but on reflection, realised that this is censorship of the worst sort; self-censorship.
So its here, in all its lurid, absurd, offensive and somewhat vitriolic sleaziness, to show that no reasonable person could take this for being anything other than what it is: ferocious and
blatantly misbehaved satire.
My own Blog detailing the police action, is viewable at my newspaper's own 'Blog Spot': http://blogspot.mg.co.za/?q=node/1002
And my overall Blog is at http://blogspot.mg.co.za/?q=blog/72
(Not that I write there much, anymore. Would you?)
The Freedom of Expression Institute, who have taken up my case, are at http://www.fxi.org.za/allframes.htm
And my own 'CV' showing a body of work beginning under Apartheid and stretching through to recent times, is online at: http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/orwell/93/aa.html
If like me, you also believe firmly in the principles of Democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, non-violent dissent, and that Democracy itself needs to be nurtured and protected, and not allowed to be handed over to a State, to then decide 'what' Democracy 'is', on its citizens behalf - then take the Killing the President blog in the spirit it was written in. An artistic and creative attempt to communicate some of the problems facing South Africa, in a way
that conveys the seriousness of the situation to the reader, along with big dollops of total seriously sustained absurdity.
I ask that you send letters or emails or faxes, to the South African Government, and/or its local diplomatic missions, requesting that they demonstrate to the world, their professed democratic principles, by allowing me the freedom of expression and speech, which I believe I am entitled to.
I ask you to request the South African Government, or its diplomatic representatives,to cease any further steps towards silencing or imprisoning me - and to realise that I am simply a writer, who was and is attempting, from a position of social conscience, to make his Government re-evaluate its own moral, political and ethical position - and doing this from a completely morally defensible and non violent position, using artistic creativity as my medium for promoting debate.
Charges at this point, have yet to be formally laid, however - expressions of Interest or concern from outside anti-censorship bodies, pro-democracy groups, and concerned Governments - may well be of use in giving the local Government here pause, to perhaps reconsider its actions, or at least alerting it to the fact that it is being observed by the outside world, and that it is taking
an unwarranted and unacceptable step towards supression of freedom of speech, in this new Democracy, and thus potentially is en route to losing those very freedoms it fought so hard to
achieve.
Ian Fraser
Johannesburg
South Africa
('Coincidentally', three days after my newspaper was contacted by the Authorities, a large scale
'burglary' took place - and almost all of my newspapers computers (around 40) were removed:
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=243020&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/
Links of Interest
Blog Detailing Police Action: http://blogspot.mg.co.za/?q=node/1002
Blog Extensively and Boringly Discussing my Reasons for creating the offending
article: http://blogspot.mg.co.za/?q=node/1019
My Overall Remaining Blog: http://blogspot.mg.co.za/?q=blog/72
posted by * at 8:50 AM
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