Who said it? Political edition

Latin America is more than one country and climate change isn’t a thing – Olivia Lam presents the things that politicians say that make us cringe and cry inside

Olivia Lam

He may be the trendiest, but he's not alone: the world has its share of nutty leaders.Gage Skidmore

As a former TV personality, the madness Trump brings to the world of politics is as ‘unpresidented’ as the number of tweets he generates. He may be the trend-iest, but he is definitely not the first eccentric leader. Leaders in other corners of the world have perplexed their people long before Trump did.

Former Czech President Václav Klaus was caught stealing a pen during a signing with the Chilean President. He did it in front of hundreds of cameras and reporters, so the hilarious moment is recorded and is still available online.

The Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta started a #UhuruDabChallenge to encourage the youth to register to vote, but he shortly cancelled it after an online backlash telling him to find a better use of his time.

President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, is often called the Eastern equivalent of Trump for his outrageous comments. He called both Obama and the Pope a “son of a whore”, the latter for worsening the traffic when he visited the Philippines. He later took back his insult towards Obama and said it was misinterpreted and it wasn’t “personal”.

“Rodrigo Duterte called both Obama and the Pope a “son of a whore”, the latter for worsening the traffic when he visited the Philippines”

Some of my other favourite quotations from political leaders around the world:

Former US President, Ronald Reagan: “Well, I learned a lot….I went down to [Latin America] to find out from them and (learn) their views. You’d be surprised. They’re all individual countries.”

UK Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson: “Life expectancy in Africa has risen astonishingly as that country has entered the global economic system.”

President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma: “This continent [Africa] is the biggest continent in the world. All continents put together will fit into Africa.”

Former Minister of Health of South Africa, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, talking about HIV/AIDS: “I think garlic is absolutely critical. Lemon is absolutely critical to boost the immune system. Olive oil is absolutely critical ... just one teaspoon, it will last the whole month.”

Former Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, in response to the death of a soldier fighting in Afghanistan: “Well, sometimes sh*t happens, doesn’t it?”

Former US President, Bill Clinton: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman Miss Lewinsky.”

Although we enjoy being amused occasionally by politicians’ nonsense, a lot of the time we do so with tears.

The famous Chairman Mao of China launched many campaigns that were ridiculously unscientific and therefore utter failures. The Four Pests Campaign launched in 1958 aimed to eliminate mosquitoes, flies, rats, and sparrows, the last target specifically because they ate crops. The Chinese people were mobilised to bang their pots and pans until the sparrows died of exhaustion. The campaign was so successful that sparrows had to seek refuge in embassies. That did not stop the determined Chinese masses. They drummed outside the Polish embassy in Beijing for two days until all the counter-revolutionary sparrows died. What Chairman Mao did not foresee was, since sparrows are predators of locusts, once sparrows were eliminated the locust population proliferated, which resulted in more crop failures. Unfortunately, the implication of his oversight on China was much graver than Klaus’s or Uhuru’s. The famine that lasted for four years following the campaign, exacerbated by the Great Leap Forward, killed 20-45 million people. His political debacle wasn’t that funny after all.

People have not got smarter over time. Climate change deniers are numerous and their voices are strong. Some of these comments lack common sense. Senator Ted Cruz has said: “the problem with climate change is there’s never been a day in the history of the world in which the climate is not changing.”

A Republican member of the House John Shimkus has said that lowering carbon dioxide level is taking food away from the plants (technically not wrong). To add to all the climate change scepticism, Trump proposed the conspiracy theory that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive” in one of his tweets. Amusing, perhaps, but it is extremely alarming that, despite the scientific community acknowledging the existence and the threat of global warming, climate change deniers continue to dominate American politics.

Some of the above gems are simply minor blunders or slips of the tongue, but some of them are too misguided to be coming out of the mouths of people who rule our world. It has been estimated that the policies of Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and the then President Thabo Mbeki have led to the death of 300,000 South Africans due to AIDS. I guess laughing about politics is the only relief most of us can have