Creative Writing Service. The New African Dictionary. Studio Franco

You Are Here...

While I was preparing this illustration fro a magazine article, I was coming up with this idea.
A dictionary to 'explain Africa' to the rest of the world.
Based on "The Enlarged Devils Dictionary" by Ambrose Bierce.

It is based on years of reading about the antics, shenanigans and lies of the African National Congress in South Africa.

They are not alone. All the Africans states are like this.

Not just "at-a-glance", but no matter how deep you dig.

African Renaissance:    What? See Rainbow

Atrocity:  everyday in Africa

Autonomous:  the degree to which decentralised bureaucracies are able to avoid public accountability and prosecution.

Ballot:  a dance. Like a ballet it is performed best with some one who can stay in step with ones self. Partners who are unable to stay in step, generally get the bullet.

Bullet:  a crisis management tool. ie:  the one-bullet-manager can solve virtually any crisis by pointing out that being out of step gets you one of these; a recruitment and marketing tool used to round up voters who will be taught how to dance in step.

Fried Africa

Bureaucracy:  Burgeoning. The chief export of African nations to one another

Bureaucratic:  a state of fulfillment achieved by once sane people; instead of a single large bureaucracy, we now have several smaller ones that do not have the same capacity for singular culpability; effective B~ communication between bureaucracies has lead to bureaucratic autonomy (see Autonomy)

Cookie-Jar:  a sort of trap. A simple trapping device whose first victim is generally the incumbent into whose care it was placed.

Crime:  A class of thought process which involves the practical application of theoretical concepts, such as where things are and where they ought to be, or how things are and how they ought to be. There is speculation that this is an “organized” process. However, judging from the responses of its adherents – no one seems to be willing to claim this benefit.

Criminal Activity  promotion of corny explanations from corrupt officials, corporate dishonesty, Customs chicanery, colluding police personnel

Criminal:  the Governments inability to deal with organised crime; hamstrung by their code of human rights – they ure unable to address human wrongs.

Dictatorship:  A style of government adopted after an uprising or revolution. Dictatorships are highly regarded for their humanity in steering a population away from their possible mistakes.

Educational Disaster:  The state of the Educational system as it stands (or lies) today. A result of the curricula, the budgets, the mismanagement administered by those who never learned from history.

Element:  once confined to the Periodic Atomic Table, elements have escaped to become “criminal”, “de-stabilizing”, “political”, “subversive” and “provocative”. Lacking an Atomic Weight, these elements are hard to capture and confine – except within a group of similar elements such as governments, voting lobbies and terrorist organizations.

Fiscal Policy:  a type of creative accounting that makes possible the inclusion of centralised monetary mismanagement as a matter of course in normal financial planning.

For Sale:  Just about every public official

Government:  A system for administering legalised violence to the voting population; popular in Pick-a-country.

Heaven:  a place on earth if one can pull all the right legs

Hijacking:  a national sport in many African states with the widest appeal and application. H~ can be played by everyone and can be applied to tangible items such as vehicles and land, intangible items such as ideas of “transparency” and incomprehensible items such as the Judicial system.

Hope:  As in “No” That quality of human yearning that is least likely to occur where the Air is Hot

Investment:  a type of risk management; previously the domain of drunken gamblers it has been elevated to stock-market status –(see Fiscal)

Insurrection:  A type of intercourse where I get to do to you that which I will never allow to happen to me. Armed I~:  usually the best form of this activity.

Judicial System:  a piece of public equipment that is usually utilised by well-wishers intent on sparing the innocent from nasty details. See Hijacking

K:  The “K” word. the word most singled out as the source for the excuse for all the reasons for the resentment of everything that is wrong with Africa today.

Lavish:  Lifestyles lived by the liberators, flaunted in the faces of the liberated – who remain as ever, languishing, illiterate and unwashed until they are ripe enough to lead the next revolution.

Military Preparedness:  Every nation has one waiting. To take over. And become a Junta. Otherwise, it provides journalists with material which it then prevents them from reporting, because their atrocities might be misunderstood.

Neighborliness:  A spectrum of armed interactivity where forces are sent as reinforcements, at one end of the scale, to mass invasion at the other.

News:  Not really. It is the same material – only the names, places and dates have been changed to squarely place the guilt.

Organization of African Impunity :  A membership club where members can feel free to do as they please with out fear of castigation. A therapy center where guilty members are absolved by their peers for their wrong doings back home.

Plausible:  Deniability

Police:  A government sanctioned armed force for protection and participation

Politician:  An organism capable of generating its own air supply

Political Office:  A facility for the generation and processing of Hot Air. Occasional cracks in the containment vessel, result in the fallout of hot water.

Politics:  A practice of livelihood by the cleverer segment of the criminal population

Popular:  Uprisings. Every month somewhere in Africa.

President:  The biggest pig in the sty of politics. A temporary chief elected by the leaders of a party of bandits for the purpose of dividing up the spoils amongst them

Pussy-footing:  a type of political stealth. A kind of bold public approach that is used to deal with issues such as education, public health, crime and poverty. Generally observed in areas where cookie jars are present.

Quell:  A direction for thoughts of social improvement

Reasonable:  Doubt that there will be beneficial long-term changes in the near future

Redistribution:  usually of what is mine, that I worked for, to them that didn’t.

Redress:  a currently popular concept. It cannot be called an idea. Ideas have a conclusion. The concept of redress taken to its full and logical conclusion would take us back to the caves. Fortunately there is not enough money or cleverness in the world to achieve this.

Rainbow:  An optical effect created in the lower atmosphere by the diffraction of sunlight thru minute water droplets.

Rainbow:  An optical defect created in the southern African atmosphere. Generally appearing as a mirage of brightness as seen through Hot Air.

Rainbow Nation:  A geographical location in Africa whose inhabitants believe in optimism

Revolution:  the time it takes for a political idea to run its course and be superceded by a different idea. R~:  a popular African voting system, shared by some South American countries. Voting is generally held after the incumbents have been found with their hands in a cookie-jar.

Revolution:  a system of changing political parties. This is usually achieved without ideas. The side with the most guns gets to hide the ballot box.

Revolutionary:  a person with a gun. People with ideas get shot, or jailed, or both.

Transformation:  Generally at gun-point. But sometimes by revelation in the news papers.

Urban:  A semi-localized form of decay which follows urban sprawl. One day the entire African continent may achieve slum status. The glowing achievement of African renaissance.

Vacant:  A sign that should be erected outside Parliament

Wonderment:  By the rest of the world, that so many people can lie, cheat and steal, and yet still appear free, on radio or television to make transparently devious comments to cover their arses.

World Bank:  The people who are going to arrange my retirement plan. The sponsors of lifestyles of the greedy and infamous.

Y:  do we have to put up with these people. We voted them in. But we cannot vote them out.

Z:  Generally appearing in the name of a person or a country that is going to cause the most problems.