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Vuvuzelas and an insidious master-plan

The remaining ones will just have to be burned. Not the best conclusion to the battle against such a dangerously intelligent enemy but the best that we can do right now. Enough talk. We must act.

Iresh Zaker
WE as a species are doomed. And I am not basing my dire prognostication on the Nimtoli disaster, or the BP oil spill, or the seven-year old Afghan boy who was executed by the Taliban for the crime of spying.
My basis for the end of humanity as we know it can be summed in one word: vuvuzela. For those who have been out of touch with all forms of civilisation for the last month, let me explain that the vuvuzela is a horn, approximately one metre in length, which re-creates the sound of an elephant or a fog-horn.
Vuvuzelas have been selected as the cultural artefact of the hour for the World Cup, which means everyone entering the stadium will be able to access vuvuzelas with relative ease. What this all means is that we will have approximately 50,000 elephants screaming at the top of their
lungs at each World Cup game.
While foreign commentators such as BBC3's Lee Dixon have opined that the vuvuzela is "quite irritating," and the prospect of having 50,000 fog-horns going off simultaneously may not be the musical choice for most people with hearing ability, my concern with the vuvuzela does not centre around the World Cup.
The World Cup is a once-in-four-years event where many crazy things happen. People fight, people die, people go crazy, people get drunk, Zidane head butts people. Generally what happens in the World Cup, stays in the World Cup.
That won't hold true for the vuvuzela, I am afraid. See the unique thing about the World Cup is that it is watched by everyone. Not just adults and dogs, but young children as well.
And unlike adults and dogs, who tend to forget the silliness of the World Cup after the final whistle of the final match,
children tend to retain the worst souvenirs for an obnoxiously long time (think Maradona from 1990).
My fear for the human race stems from this. Children, by the wondrous characteristics nature has imbued them with, tend to have an almost peter-natural attraction towards all things unhealthy and annoying.
Take them to a restaurant and they will, with single-minded zeal, embrace the ketchup. Ketchup is not only unhealthy, it also has the highest potential of irritat-
ing everyone around with its squirtability and stain permanence quotient.
Thus, almost inevitably, what children will choose to take out of this world cup, will be the vuvuzela. Children around the world will acquire the vuvuzela with great facility.
After the opening ceremony, they will start crying for the vuvuzela. Parents, not wanting to ruin their own world cup experience, will buy get the vuvuzelas to shut their little gems up. The precious army will start blowing right away.
While the tournament is on, the domestic blare of the vuvuzela won't be noticed. In fact, parents will foolishly encourage the cacophony, thinking that it is enhancing the global celebratory experience.
With one month of practice, each child in each home will become a vuvuzela expert. Then, the World Cup will end. Relative normalcy will ensue for adults. Calm and peace that we are used to for four years between World Cups.
Except, the vuvuzelas will still be around.
And the children will be blowing them with unprecedented vigour and skill. For every vuvuzela burnt, the children will dig up another one. Ultimately, the parents will have to do what you need to do when there is a wild elephant in the house. Kill it. And thus the human race shall cease to perpetuate.
The origins of the vuvuzela are murky. There is a man in South Africa who claims to have invented it. His name is Freddie "Saddam" Maake. Are you kidding me? From my perspective, it is obvious what is happening.
There cannot exist any human named Freddie "Saddam" Maake. Clearly he is an alien, and the vuvuzela is part of a coldly efficient master-plan hatched by a highly evolved and sophisticated race
from outer space, determined to take over the resource-rich planet that is Earth.
One cannot help but wonder at the brilliance of our foe. Using our children to perpetrate global infanticide. Without using a single bullet. The enemy is like the British conquerors on brain steroids. Chilling stuff.
However, while the future is very dark, it is, contrary to my earlier assertions, not completely dead. We have spotted the enemy's plan, and can still do something about it. Granted, we are not playing with a lot of time here. But action is possible. We don't even need to confiscate all existing vuvuzelas. Instead, we should insert keys into all vuvuzelas made for the global market, thereby turning it into a proper musical instrument like the coronet or the oboe.
The one thing children hate more than eating vegetables is learning to play a musical instrument. Once the World Cup is over, the vuvuzela will be silenced forever, in most parts of the world.
The remaining ones will just have to be burned. Not the best conclusion to the battle against such a dangerously intelligent enemy but the best that we can do right now. Enough talk. We must act.
Iresh Zaker Is an actor and an advertising executive.