The first English dirge I was taught to sing at school told the story of the sparrow’s IQ; the lyrics went: “All the birds of the air felt so sad and sorry when they heard of the death of poor Cock Robin… Who killed Cock Robin? I, said the sparrow, with my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin …!” The dirge depicts a creature either very stupid or abnormally honest. The first thing that comes to mind when singing this dirge was a picture of a mentally retarded bird. While all the birds expressed sadness and sorrow at the death of Cock Robin, the Sparrow boasted she had killed Cock Robin! How could this bird preen her wings to boast murder that saddened the rest of the bird kingdom?
Now we read of some Penny Sparrow stirring the hornet’s nest by calling blacks in SA and implicitly, blacks wherever they may be, “monkeys!” That can’t be a statement from anyone with a proper functioning human brain. To demonstrate the puny size of Penny’s brain, she posts the statement on Facebook of all the media forums available. No, Penny Sparrow can’t be normal. I suggest before she’s dragged before the courts, which action is contemplated by those revolted by her provocative statement, she must be referred to psychiatry to determine whether she is normal. She has enraged many who thought the apartheid monster was receding to the abyss of human relations ocean, if not dead and buried. The crazy ideology of the sub-human species should be found only in the archives of South African history. Instead of allowing South Africans to heal and reconcile, to enjoy peace harvested after years of strife and un-governability, imposed by the apartheid monster, Sparrow goes about shooting her beak and wielding her pen to revive the healing scars! Penny Sparrow must have embarrassed her party, the DA, originally the Progressive Party of Helen Suzman who stood in solidarity with Madiba while he was imprisoned on the notorious Island prison, immensely. Helen must be turning in her grave to know that her party now recruits sparrows who come wearing the discarded mantle of Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid.
