Some of our parliamentary readers will be aware that yesterday the South African parliament was the scene of a death for the the first time since the the 1966 assassination of one Hendrik Verwoerd, esq.

Louisa Phumela Zama, 27, was one of three people in a delegation representing a KwaZulu-Natal Reserve Force unit, the Durban Light Infantry, and was halfway through her submission on the Defence Amendment Bill when she collapsed about 4pm.

While the event is undeniably tragic, no one could have planned a more ironic death.

Mlangeni said the young woman had been explaining to MPs how she had battled to be accepted into the reserve force because of her weight.

“Just at the stage when she was going to tell the committee why she was not succeeding, she collapsed and fell between the chairs.”

Parliament said the cause of death was a heart attack and that the woman’s family was being informed.

So she was explaining to parliament that she was being picked on for her weight, and RIGHT before she gets to the climax of her plight, her heart gives up, because she’s overweight?

Teachers, please refer your students to this link for an anecdotal explanation of irony.

[Source : IOL]