We of the “old establishment” are indeed terrified by the advent of Ronald Suresh Roberts on our shores, as he himself puts it. Here is a post-colonial liberator of impeccable credentials, and handsomely endowed features to boot, who, although, again as he says, we have never had a substantial conversation, takes us on as the major problem in his hitherto life of literary fame and glory in his forcibly adopted native land.

We do have to thank him, however, for bringing to our attention his comparison of himself with the late, great Irish author, playwright, and cynic, Oscar Wilde. It is something of a coming-out-of-the-closet, in the same way that Wilde, married with two children, succumbed, as he said in court, to temptations with another man.

Not that we are imputing anything to the dude’s sexual orientation. Just that it is interesting that Roberts chooses to place himself in the company of one of the greatest wits of the English language, and an anti-establishment radical of his times. What is he trying to tell us?

Wilde was an Irishman who rose to fame in the English literary establishment, got caught out by creaky English laws, spent time in jail for his sexual sins, and died in poverty some years later.

The only thing that the mighty Roberts has to tell us that likens him to Wilde is that “the duty we owe to history is to rewrite it”. And that, apparently, is what he is in this country to do.

His much anticipated biography of the state president will, presumably, tell us what the rewriting of history should be all about.

But who is he to compare himself to Wilde? What a waste of time. What a waste of good wit. Wilde was a master of off–the-cuff witticisms, written or spoken. Roberts is not. If we have not had a substantial conversation (in fact we have not had a conversation at all) it is because there would not have been anything to say.

But as I said, thanks, Mr Roberts, for reminding us that we should be revisiting some of the witty, intelligent, talented observations of Oscar Wilde, and making us wonder, yet again, what they have to say to us in the world we live in today.

“Only the shallow know themselves,” is one of the Irish wit’s pithy comments. Roberts is outstanding in declaring to what degree he knows himself, and how the rest of the world is wrong. He evades the comments of the judge who found his outrageous libel suit objectionable and ridiculous, and instead concentrates on the media (including myself) who simply commented on it: “The media is not the public,” says the Trinidadian Crusader. “The public knows a media-lynching when it sees one.” Here is the hero-figure confident in his knowledge of himself.

Not that I believe the media are omnipotent, universally intelligent, and incorruptible. As Wilde himself commented: “By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.”

Roberts might be associating himself with this sentiment in his comments on what he calls his own media lynching, although, as usual, he doesn’t say so with any precision or accurate English. But we should give him the benefit of the doubt nevertheless.

Oscar Wilde also said: “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” We shouldn’t deride Mr Roberts for being so in love with himself, and believing that, in spite of media comments to the contrary, the public is in love with him too. Sure, he provides no proof of this supposed public adulation, but that is neither here or there. He loves himself, ergo the universe is in love with him too. Fuck the press.

But we have to wonder, finally, what Mr Roberts’ role really is in South Africa, and how we define South Africa.

Reverting to Wilde, as Mr Roberts so graciously encouraged us to do, we have to look at another of Wilde’s witty comments: “America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilisation in between.”

For “America” substitute “South Africa Today” and we have a fine metaphor indeed. JM Coetzee (now self-exiled in the Antipodes) characterised white (read: colonial, Mr Roberts) South Africa as being a threatened territory waiting for the invasion of the encroaching barbarians (read “darkies in general, including you”, Mr Roberts.)

The country whose history Mr Roberts has now been commissioned to rewrite can indeed be seen, from many angles, as one that has moved from white barbarism to the kind of BEE decadence that this same Mr Roberts so eloquently speaks for and fronts -- although God knows by whose mandate.

The civilisation phase that Wilde noted was missing in the nature of modern America is still sadly wanting here on our own shores -- see the comments by the government saying that crime, for example, will not be seen to be out of control until the majority of the population actually says that it is. The media is at fault, once again.

Mr Roberts is happy to speak in the first person about “our Constitution”. Well, whoever he is, let us remind ourselves of another Oscar Wilde off-the-cuff aphorism: “Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.”

Let’s just hope we’re not there yet. Although, sometimes you wonder -- especially when you see who is supposedly speaking for “the people”, as in the case of the venerable Mr Roberts.