"Blue and Red, Like I Don't Know What the Big Deal Is..."

A few excerpts from an incredible article on the drug trade in South Africa (subscription only), written by WSJ reporter Mark Schoofs, whom I had the honor of serving as translator and library scout a few years ago:

Welcoming a visitor to his apartment on the outskirts of this city, Igshaan "Sanie" Davids wore only silky maroon boxer shorts festooned with brightly colored ducks and the slogan "Totally Quackers," his ample belly sloping out far beyond the waistband. Tattoos of the Statue of Liberty, the American flag and the U.S. dollar adorned his arms and back. Knife and bullet scars pitted his body.

Mr. Davids is a leader of a Cape Town street gang called the Americans, South African law-enforcement officials say. The gang initiates its members with rites that twist the meaning of U.S. symbols. Its motto is, "In God we trust, and die we must," members say. Their handshake ends by placing the right fist over the heart, in what they describe as a variation on U.S. citizens reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

"We're businessmen, always rolling," Mr. Davids said. These days, he said, about the best business going is tik, South African slang for methamphetamine. Gangs can obtain the drug or its ingredients from Chinese sources in exchange for abalone poached from South African waters, say South African officials and Mr. Davids.

More on the Americans, who are, I remind you, real:

Law-enforcement officials describe the "Americans" as the largest of the Cape Flats street gangs and Mr. Davids, who is colored, as a powerful gang lord. He regularly appears in gang stories in the local tabloids, often on the cover. Headlines or photo captions frequently refer to him simply as "Sanie" or "Sanie American." In interviews, Mr. Davids at times declared he has abandoned all illegal activity and now earns his living through a construction business. But at other times he described in detail how he trafficked in methamphetamine, and when pressed on his largest current source of income, he said, "tik is bigger than everything."

The Americans gang has its own interpretation of the American flag. According to Mr. Davids and other gang members, the red stripes on the flag stand for blood and killing, whereas the white stripes symbolize the clean work of making money. The stars stand for the gang's "senators," leaders in the Cape Flats' many neighborhoods.

Naturally, they are not the only ones:

"Abalone is quick money -- I like it more than anything else," says Mujahid Daniels. He and his brother-in-law, Raqeeb "Ricky" Oaker, are reputed leaders of Junior Mafia, another gang in the Cape Town area, but they couldn't be more different from Mr. Davids. Also in their mid-30s, Messrs. Daniels and Oaker dress like models. They operate a trendy nightclub, Barmooda, where they say they don't allow any illegal drugs. In an upstairs office, they monitor patrons on sleek computers hooked up to surveillance cameras. When they see someone suspicious -- or an attractive woman -- they click on the image to magnify it.

In conclusion:

xxmidnightxx: So, American iconography is officially just trappings of a dead god, like Christmas stuff
xxmidnightxx: how the snowmen all have little feet now