What Is Santa Bringing Yassin Bey, Hillary Clinton This Christmas?

And Novak Djokovic, and the South Korean President?
Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks to students from Ben Murch Elementary School during the arrival of the White House Christmas Tree at the White House in Washington, DC, November 29, 2000.
Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks to students from Ben Murch Elementary School during the arrival of the White House Christmas Tree at the White House in Washington, DC, November 29, 2000.
William Philpott / Reuters

Who knows, honestly? There might be an old picturesque postcard from Santa Claus and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer in the North Pole. Or a long forgotten love letter wishing you the loving best from German model, actress and fashion designer, Claudia Schiffer, if your name just happens to be Seal. And if you are the Kenyan police you might find the bespectacled figure of the Vice-President of the Kenya Olympics Committee hiding under his bed. Kenyan police found Mr. Ekumbo lying under his bed as police sought to arrest him on corruption charges in the latter days of November. As he had made his bed in the morning, he surely should have lain in it, shouldn't he?

This is exactly what the highly knowledgeable Mrs. Barry, my Grade 7 teacher at Hallingbury primary school, used to say to my classmates and I all the time: If you make you bed in the morning, you must lie in it later on. So I guess Mr. Ekumbo has not had the good fortune of meeting a mentor like Mrs. Barry yet, as he literally chose to lie underneath his bed in a farcical attempt to hide from the long arm of the law.

Kenyan police alleged Mr. Ekumbo and his colleagues had siphoned R111 million in public funds and equipment from the Olympics federation. Police did not say why they chose to look for him under his bed. Perhaps they expected to find some of the missing millions stashed away there? Human beings are creatures of habit after all and hiding themselves or ill-gotten property or cash or personal effects of great sentimental value under their beds is hardly unheard of.

Take Allister Coetzee, the embattled Springbok coach, for example. What do you think he would hide under his bed? He probably has a neatly typed but undated resignation letter, which is kept in a well-perfumed envelope, a vintage 1970s Panasonic Vinyl Record Player and a copy of the hit single My Way by Frank Sinatra under his king-size bed. Coach Coetzee, a bit like the not-so-hard-to-find Mr. Ekumbo, has probably spent some quiet but quality moments of desperate reflection under his bed while contemplating his future with the Springboks squad.

He has probably found a neat cloth in his garage and dusted off the years of dusty neglect gathering on his Panasonic Record Player. He has also probably given My Way a number of spins in the last eight weeks or so.

The opening two lines of the song must surely resonate with Coach Coetzee in this most difficult phase of his career as a rugby coach.

And now, the end is near. And so I face the final curtain.

Should he cave in to the immense pressure he is facing at the moment, and hand in that resignation letter of his, he, like Mr. Ekumbo, might find some solace right under that big and comfortable bed of his at home.

Another newsmaker you may have read about and seen on TV this year is Hillary Clinton. What might you find under her bed? You might find an exceptionally well-written acceptance speech that never made it to the big stage, unfortunately, and a huge box of facial tissues. You might also find a collection of rare novels titled Don't Cry For Me America,Millionaires Don't Cry In Public, and My Best Just Wasn't Good Enough. If you look long and hard enough you will probably find what should be her favorite novel of all time as well: I hate Monica.

This brings us us to Yassin Bey: The rapper Home Affairs branded "undesirable" and ordered out of the country recently. What do you think Mos Def had hidden under his bed? You might have had a wig; a make-up kit, a fake moustache and a book titled How to Blend in and Walk and Talk like A South African packedunder his bed. And there might have been an instructive manual titled 7 Steps to Making South Africa home If You Want To.

Mos Def probably also had a letter from Wesley Snipes warning him not use a fake passport. But you would not have found a book titled I'm Going Home On My Own Accord though.

What if you spent ten minutes ruffling through the junk under the bed of Park Geun-hye, the scandal-hit president of South Korea? She has been stripped of her presidential powers and is facing impeachment for allegedly helping her friend extort money from large South Korean corporations. You might find a small state of the art shredding machine and a brief matter-of-fact resignation letter and novels with thought-provoking titles like Don't Trust Friends, You Can't Trust Friends, How To Choose The Right Friends, What A Shame, Girl and It's Going To Be A Long Dark Winter.

What if you had a look under Novak Djokovic's bed? The 12-time Grand Slam winner, who lost his ATP world number one ranking to Andy Murray of Scotland in November, probably has a great collection of soulful records he can listen to over the Christmas holidays in Monte Carlo like Andy is a foul-mouthed Brute, I'll get you Andy, This Is Not The End, Andy; If You Don't Know Me By Know, Andy; Nothing Lasts Andy; and Damn You, Andy.

Lastly, what if you had a look under the bed of a sexual predator dubbed the 'Hyena of Malawi' by the media? The man who had sex with at least 100 girls, some of whom were as young as 12 years of age, as well as recently bereaved widows, in traditional cleansing rituals, was sentenced to two years in jail for engaging in "harmful practices" by a court in Malawi.

Although the overwhelming stench of immorality under his bed might be too much for most people to contemplate or stomach: what do you think you might find under his bed? Would you find a book titled African Traditional Ways Are Raping The Dignity Of Women and a formative piece by a much-respected traditional leader titled Women and Girls are Second-class Citizens in Africa?

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