Turn it off!
Advice from a 1980s South African countercultural icon on switching off the screen when you've had enough of Elon Musk and Donald Trump's crimes and their ugly faces.
In 1989, in the dying days of apartheid in South Africa, Johannes Kerkorrel released a song called “Sit Dit Af”—which means “Turn It Off!” (On YouTube here.)
“Johannes Kerkorrel” was the stage name of Ralph John Rabie. He was a prominent member of a group of young Afrikaans writers, journalists, and musicians who publicly rejected the racism of the ruling National Party. For most of my childhood in South Africa, that party and the country were led by P.W. Botha, as prime minister from 1978 to 1984, and then under a new constitution as president from 1984 to 1989.
Then the Berlin Wall fell, the U.S. had no more need of the apartheid regime as a shield against Soviet-backed communist forces, and there was no longer an excuse for any country to tolerate South Africa’s explicitly racist laws. In 1994, South Africa had its first democratic election, and Nelson Mandela and his ANC party won by an overwhelming majority, after a few years of rule by P.W. Botha’s successor, F.W. De Klerk, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela in 1993 for “their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa.”
But when I was a kid, while Mandela’s photograph was banned from the media and books (and there was no internet), P.W. Botha’s face was on the TV news every night and frequently on the front pages of the newspapers. He was often photographed wagging his finger as he lectured foreign and South African critics about the excellence of his racist, Afrikaner nationalist government, and he was nicknamed “The Big Crocodile” because he was outspoken in defending his apartheid regime internationally.
My family all hated seeing P.W. Botha on the TV, with his oleaginous face and his fucking finger. And so did Johannes Kerkorrel: the song “Sit Dit Af” was about turning off the TV in anger at seeing P.W.’s face. (It was easier back then with no smartphones and no internet: as South African cartoonist Zapiro points out in this brutal image, in these connected days, it’s impossible not to think about Trump. He could have added Musk too.)
So I find myself thinking of and listening to “Sit Dit Af” these days, as I occasionally try to totally tune out the Trump and Musk shitshow. Which is important to do for my sanity, and I suspect yours.
Coda
There is an English translation of the lyrics of “Sit Dit Af” followed by the original Afrikaans below. I find reading the lyrics somehow reassuring, or perhaps cathartic.
But unfortunately I cannot offer any hope from the tale of P.W. Botha and Johannes Kerkorrel. The musician took his own life in 2002, while the racist politician remained unrepentant until he died in 2006 at the age of 90, at his home in the pretty seaside town of Wilderness. In 1998, P.W. Botha had refused to testify at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was designed to allow South Africans to confess their crimes in exchange for forgiveness.
Also mentioned in the lyrics of “Sit Dit Af” is Pik Botha. He was no relation of P.W.; he was the man P.W. dispatched to other countries to defend apartheid as foreign minister. Pik’s grandson is Roelof Botha, the PayPal alum, venture capitalist, and associate of Elon Musk, who tries to pretend that his family was not in charge of a major part of the apartheid regime (see screenshot and link from Twitter below).
Life is not fair, and sometimes bad people get away with murder.
Turn it off!
The other day I felt tired
I wanted to relax a little
And a farmer makes a plan [an Afrikaans expression that means something like “a dude works it out”]
I turned on my TV set
You won't believe what I saw
There on my TV screen
It was a nasty sight
It completely disturbed me
It was a fucking farce
It was P.W. 's face
And next to him stands old uncle Pik, yes [Pik Botha, grandfather of venture capitalist and Elon Musk associate Roelof Botha]
Ooo, I thought I was going to choke
Chorus:
Turn it off, turn it off (turn it off, turn it off)
Turn it off, turn it off (turn it off, turn it off)
Turn it off, turn it off (turn it off, turn it off)
Because it's a hell of a punishment
I walk to the kitchen and get a beer
And switch to TV4
Oh my fuck what do we have here
What's defacing my tv screen
Is there nowhere to run
From that man's beautiful face
With his finger in the air
Is he just going to upset my life
All the programs on the air
All you see is P.W.'s face
I'll bet you now, all the neighbors have M-net! [South Africa’s first cable TV channel, which launched in 1986 and did not have to broadcast government propaganda]
Roelof Botha’s tweet
Sit Dit Af
Die ander dag toe voel ek lam
Ek wou 'n klein bietjie ontspan
En 'n boer maak 'n plan
Ek sit my tv-set toe aan
Jy sal nie glo wat ek sien
Daar op my tv screen
Dit was 'n nare gesig
Dit het my heeltemal ontwrig
Dit was 'n moerse klug
Dit was P.W. se gesig
En langs hom staan ou oom Pik, ja
Ooo, ek dog ek gaan verstik
Koor:
Sit dit af, sit dit af (sit dit af, sit dit af)
Sit dit af, sit dit af (sit dit af, sit dit af)
Sit dit af, sit dit af (sit dit af, sit dit af)
Want dis 'n helse straf
Ek stap kombuis toe kry 'n bier
En skakel oor na TV4
O my fok wat het ons hier
Wat my tv screen ontsier
Is daar nerens om te vlug
Van daai man se mooi gesig
Met sy vinger in die lug
Gaan hy my lewe net ontstig
En die programme in die lug
Sien jy net P.W. se gesig
Ek vat jou nou 'n wed
Al die bure het M-net!
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