What Sadiq Khan said to Geordin Hill-Lewis in London
A transcript of the conversation between the Grand Mufti of London, Sadiq Khan, and the Mayor of Cape Town, Geordin Hill-Lewis.
[The following exchange took place after both men ventured outside an event held to welcome Cape Town’s mayor…and technicians forgot to detach each from their microphones]
Sadiq Khan (SK): “…remind me why you’re here again? The falafel? Jollof rice?”
Geordin Hill-Lewis (GH-L): “Um…no…I’ve been in New York and I couldn’t get a direct flight there, ja, um, I wish there was still the SAA New York to Johannesburg direct, haha, but regrettably things have slipped down south…”
SK (interrupts):“Sorry you just said you wanted to (whispers) sh..shit in my mouth? Short answer is yes but we’d need quite a lot of 8-year-old Pakistani boys to dance beforehand…”
GH-L (interrupts): “No! No, not what I was saying at all. I was talking about the national airline South African Airways no longer offering a direct flight to the US.”
SK: “Ah. Yes, very fond of South African Airways we are. One of the great decolonization stories. What was it once? A fleet of 148 aircraft traveling to 74 international destinations?
GH-L: “Yeah…um…(stammers) not sure I’m following you here…there’s only 9 aircraft left traveling to 17 destinations now? And its really, really rubbis…”
SK: “Fucking brilliant! Honestly, I don’t know why we don’t lean on this use case more? It’s the original DEI - would be even better if those 9 remaining aircraft were put together like Boeing puts its 737 MAXs together. Haha. Funny story I’ve got for you - you’ll love this. So my friend Luftur and I were negotiating the release of some hostages kidnapped by Somali pirates one evening - he’s also from Pakistan and we get asked to deal with those skinnies on the quiet, handsome little earner you know, I mean, I know most of them…so anyways, we’re talking and suddenly the phone rings and it’s my head of security, and he says there’s a white guy whose been caught in Hyde Park tied up naked to a bench with an orange ball shoved in his mouth. So I’m thinking: these fucking conservative party ministers again, but it turns out, he’s the head of one of these big US airlines using yass kweens to drill the screws into the doors. They are talking about arresting him - I’m like: NO! Leave the fucker alone! Actually, take him back to his hotel - and send the bill to Transport for London! Can you believe that?
GH-L (breathes heavily): “Mr. Mayor I’m not sure I do love th…”
SK (interrupts with voice raised): “No, Mr. Mayor, I’m not sure…about you…actually. You know, when I heard you were running way back when we did a bit of the old due diligence on you. I thought (talking animatedly): here’s this chubby do-gooder, typical liberal suburban yoot (youth) whitey who went to a half-Portuguese school in Durbanville, he’s going to help us where we want to go, but annoyingly slowly, which is not ideal, but then…then I hear you have a confrontation with some black taxi drivers….and you hold your ground? The fuck is that about?
GH-L: “You would have preferred that…we - the City of Cape Town - backed down to a group of people associated with murder and extortion? Seriously?
SK (aggressively): “YES. FUCKING.PLEASE. Of course. You back down, and then you give them more money. Honestly (exasperated). There’s also the issue of your admiration of Tony Blair…
GH-L: “My admiration of Tony Blair?”
SK: “You once said he was a ‘leader you looked up to’. What did you mean by this? Because there’s a good answer and a bad answer. The good answer is: I like Tony Blair because he initiated the demographic alteration of the UK via uncontrolled immigration - you know, the great replacement conspiracy theory which isn’t actually a conspiracy theory, we just say it is. The bad answer is: I like Tony Blair because he killed many people in the Middle East. Which is dumb, okay, because you’re not supposed to kill the people you want to end up replacing your indigenous population.”
GH-L: “I just said I liked his book. I didn’t mention war or anything like that? Look I think (stammers)…I need to find my people…”
SK: “Where are you on trans?”
GH-L: “Well, Cape Town has a proud history of gay rights, we have a parade each year and there’s a vibrant, historically gay community living on the Atlantic seaboard. We’d like to think we have excellent relations.”
SK (sounds puzzled): “Sorry…er…I just asked you about trans…why you talking about the gays? Completely different issue. Again: where are you on trans?”
GH-L: “As I said, Cape Town has a…
SK (interrupts): “Trans is one way to another term. Confuse the hell out of people. Not interested in the gays. Actually, they are the new Hitler. We said to them in the 80s: you’re part of a process, you’re not the process itself, so we’ll entertain your extravagant dancing to the Pet Shop Boys, and rubbing your hand creams in, carrying your Louis Vuitton overnights…but don’t get smart when we shift the dial. And what happens? They get smart. Suddenly they’re all like (animated, high-pitched voice voice): ‘no, actually, we don’t agree with parents being prosecuted for deadnaming their own children’ and ‘oh, we think its outrageous children have to listen to drag queens yada yada yada’. The gays can (inaudible) **** * ****** ****.”
GH-L (coughs violently): “No I’m sorry…Mr. Mayor…sorry…wow…erm, were you just racist and homophobic in less than 5 words?”
SK: “Damn right, motherfucker. And that’s before I get to lesbians, fucking (animated deep voice) ‘oh look at me with my spikey hair riding a motorbike’ and ‘oh look at me sitting on my motorbike starring in an advert for tampons’ - all serious-like - (animated deep voice again) ‘when-I-party-I-fucking-party’. Both barrels for them, Habibi.
GH-L (interrupts): “Um…ja…I don’t really know (stammers)…can we change the subject? How do you ensure effective service delivery here?”
SK: “The what?”
GH-L: “Service delivery. Making sure everything works?”
SK: “Fucked if I know. Doesn’t actually, so don’t go around here spreading gossip. Let me tell you something. Mayoral elections in less than 100 days here. Landslide, Habibi, fucking (pronounces slowly) L-A-N-D-S-L-I-D-E. Conservatives - they got no interest in London. They don’t care. Sitting in their gentleman’s clubs, they got a simple choice: let’s sit at this table until we have hammered out a plan for London’s future, or, actually, see that cute Spanish waiter Fernando over there? Once he knocks off, we’ll take him back to Dolphin Square and spike his drink.
GH-L (sounds disgusted): “Really, Mr. Mayor we are again veering wildly off-piste…can I just ask that we…”
SK (interrupts): “So the conservatives have offered up this frumpy woman…the type who could have once been married to a conservative MP before he left her for a Spanish waiter, and now she’s got the hump and is trying to divorce-rage at him in his own game. Useless. I mean, the amount of people I’ve welcomed into London who cannot speak English, who ask me, mostly in Urdu, ‘why is that woman even talking and where the hell is her keeper’ is impressive. There’s just no way.
GH-L: “Look, I must be going…Mr. Mayor thank you for hosting me…um…”
SK (interrupts): “I can help you.”
GH-L: “…I’m sorry?”
SK (whispers): “I can help you get another term. And another one after that - if you want. There’s a group of white liberals who meet in Cape Town once a week. Data analysts - whatever that is - writers, academics, activists and some old crusty expats, you know, Jeremy Corbyn lookey-likeys. But no old commie stuff discussed here, literally the most progressive blue sky-ing you’ll ever encounter…literally content that can drive a dictator’s agenda…takes place in a joint called…fuck it, what is called again…Falcon…Falcon…hole? No its not hole…Falconville?
GH-L: “What is….
SK (interrupts): BERG! (speaks slowly)F-a-l-c-o-n-b-e-r-g…yes…that’s where they meet.
GH-L: “Valkenberg? What? Surely you’re not talking about the high-security psychiatric hospital…
SK: “A very safe space I understand. They are getting down to the most cutting-edge stuff conceivable. A one world government under Islam, a new sla…sorry, erm, hahaha, a new trade route - yes, a trade route - delivering white people to China and Indonesia, they have MAPS presentations…
GH-L (interrupts): “MAPS?”
SK: “MAPS. Constituent of mine for long time. Ages. Minor attracted pers…”
GH-L (interrupts): “Mr. Mayor, look, I have absolutely no interest in meeting anyone on that.”
SK: “Well have it your way, (talks animatedly) be just a single term has-been, exclude yourself from this trend I’ve been driving, which you clearly haven’t been paying any attention to…look at Barcelona, or Milan, or New York. All like me. All came from me. Slums, cultural decimation, sorry, ‘enrichment’. We’re all concentrating a special kind of power in cities, and guilt-laden whites are sucking it up. The ones here call us ‘the liberal consciousness’ - whatever the fuck that means.”
GH-L: “I’m not interested in dividing people. I’m trying to sustain a city that must be different from other South African cities.”
SK: “Because why? Why wouldn’t you want to create a slum? The benefits are endless. I get complimentary spa treatments from hotels, free Deliveroo - obviously - and Netflix want to do a documentary about me. And I have problem you don’t. The City of London - the actual place with the offices - is a white supremacist idea, and I’m not allowed to do what I want there, which would be to pack those glass buildings to the rafters with Eritreans and let them use the lift shafts as toilets.”
GH-L: “That’s gross.”
SK: “And there we have it. Racist. Knew it from the start.”
GH-L: “No, actually, you’re the model of ‘they-are-the-very-thing-they-accuse-you-of”. Earlier I heard you make the most disgusting comment. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll go back to trying, and you go back to doing…whatever it is you do.”
SK: “Whatever loser. You go back to persecuting innocent black taxi drivers. One term wonder.”
GH-L: “At least I’ll never suffer the ignominy of Donald Trump tweeting from 35000ft what a shit mayor I am...”
SK (interrupts): “Oh shit here come the cameras. Fuck. Okay, now, shake my hand fatso and smile…”
GH-L (barely audible): “I’m smiling but I hate you. Poisonous dwarf. The moment you land in Cape Town I’ll know, and I’ll get my security guy JP to make sure you get a nice initiation tour on the flats with the Junky-Funky boys. Try tell them about your trans and your cutting-edge pedos.”
SK (whimpering rage): “I fucking hate you! Come to London again and I’ll get the mandem to rip you one! Fucking disgrace to us Western mayors! I…fucking…(sound of a metal beam being kicked)”
GH-L (interrupts): “Thanks for nothing you shit-eating (inaudible) ****. And have fun with your dancing boys tonight. Don’t forget to hand out business cards for the day when you’re forced back to being a, erm…haha…'human rights lawyer’…”
[ENDS]