By Joanne Carew “If you want to be a cunt, then the LEAST you can do is embrace it and grow some fucking ovaries,” Women24’s Lili Radloff says of her pet peeves. Religion, politics, sex – these are three things we are taught to never discuss at the dinner table. Add in race, gender and a colourful array of other topics some might consider unsavoury and you’ve got the basic outline of what came up when I interviewed a group of outspoken South African columnists for COUP’s Cynical Rant issue. Yup, if you are feeling at all in a sensitive mood, you should probably stop reading this article. That said – let the ranting begin. “Corruption, Julius Malema, religion and culture.” These are the subjects that get the biggest reaction from readers, according to columnist Andile Mngxitama. Radloff agrees. “Anything about race, religion, sex or feminism. If you can wrap it up in one story, you’re golden. I’m still waiting for something like, ‘Lesbians for Jesus gang rape black Satanist’,” she jokes. For the ever-controversial Ivo Vegter, its environmental debates that get the biggest reaction. “Anything that goes against orthodox green thinking provokes strong reactions, especially when it is well argued,” he says. So now we know what gets readers going, but what truly irks this candid bunch? “Stupid people, students and politicians. I’m with the Zizek that stupid people don’t deserve to be happy, and right now we live in country where the official ideology is stupidity, and the imbeciles are having a great time. I mean, which sane people would have Zuma for president, Malema for the future and Helen Zille as the main leader of the opposition party? Take the posh accent away from Lindiwe Mazibuko and you have a perfect situation of political stupidity on steroids,” says Mngxitama. But wait, that’s not all. “Bloody whites and the ANC”, also get his back up. “The ANC has rendered blacks a powerless voting majority. The responsibility of ending racism is one for blacks not whites, so what we have in South Africa right now is a bizarre situation where white supremacy is managed by blacks in power. The ANC are the agents of whiteness. Actually, in all my moans it comes down to ‘well, what do we expect from whites really?’ Radloff is just as honest about her aversions. “What I do love to rant about (and I do this most vocally and mostly when I’m drunk) are people who live their lives by what they own instead of who they are. Dude, you can’t fake having a personality by knowing which shades to buy and what clubs to go to,” she says. Equally blunt, Vegter offers: “I get annoyed when people fall for – or worse, use – logical fallacies, needless fear-mongering, or cherry-picked statistics. It shows a lack of rational thought. Anything can be justified if you’re not principled in your beliefs and rigorous in your thought.” Did I mention that he also hates socialists? “I despise socialists, leeches, tapeworms and other parasites. As Churchill says, ‘if the chief vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings, the chief vice of socialism is the equal sharing of misery’.” 07●DECEMBER●2011●COUP