Countrymen and women, loyalists and opponents I was in Rome, mourning the pope, when I heard the news. The news was that some of the most respected Christian leaders in the country had ?ganged? up to issue a statement, demanding an apology from Jerry Boom for comparing me to the most notorious armed robber in Sikaman.
I know that most of you think that I should be happy because the moral authorities in our society have absolved me of any blame in this ongoing trade in insults across the great political divide. Even though they didn?t explicitly say so, they concluded that I am innocent. Now, at least according to the Christian leaders, Jerry Boom should be blamed for ?bringing the people of Sikaman into contempt, disrepute, dishonour and disgrace?. He is therefore being ?instructed? to render an unqualified apology, not only to me, but to the good people of Sikaman as well. But I am not happy. The statement by the Christian leaders did not just come as a shock to me. It generated so much anger in me that I couldn?t weep appropriately at the funeral of the pope. As a result I walked around the Vatican with a mixed expression of sadness and anger.