Chris Roper’s “Grift to the mill” (Features, February 12-18) is a masterclass in the very “cargo cult” behaviour he ridicules. He spends a column mimicking a sophisticated analyst but produces only school-prefect-like sneering.
Roper misses the tragedy of the cargo cult: it is a poignant longing for an era of connection and “being in on the action”. In our remote bric-a-brac outpost, is the commemoration of, for example, Trafalgar Day any different? It is a reach for a time when we were part of something greater — a Commonwealth where wealth and assets, such as naval vessels, were shared and maintained for a common purpose, rather than squandered and neglected in self-important pride.
Roper’s reliance on ridicule is its own ritualised mimicry. He sits in a bamboo control tower of moral superiority, waving signal fires of vitriol in the hope that the “deities” of progressive relevance will notice him. If the FM pays for such patronising drivel, its editorial board is drifting toward a reef of its own making.
Brian Atlas
By e-mail
The FM welcomes concise letters from readers. They can be sent to fmmail@fm.co.za
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