Being a celeb doesn’t mean you can break the rules

If you mention the name Lance Armstrong this week in South Africa, you'll be met with mixed reactions. Talk shows are talking and twitterers tweeting. It all started when Armstrong arrived in Cape Town with a full passport - a no-no for admittance to any country in the world. You need at least two blank pages for stamping and you'd think Armstrong, being a world traveller, would know that.

But he was in fact affronted and tweeted the following:

"Well, made it in to SA. Not the friendliest welcome I've ever received but we've all seen immigration officers like that."

Siobhan McCarthy, chief director of communication at home affairs, said visitors travelling to South Africa need to have at least two blank pages in their passport in order to be allowed entry to the country. "Airlines are supposed to check people's passports before they leave for another country," she added.

She went on to explain that a person would normally be refused entry to a country and have to return from wherever they came from.

Within a few minutes of this story appearing online and on the radio comments came flying in from all directions. Aki Anastasiou, well-known traffic controller and broadcaster for Talk Radio 702, posted the following on Posterous [read the full post]:

Dear Lance

Welcome to South Africa! We really are truly honoured to have a cyclist of your calibre in our country participating in the Argus.

But last night you were wrong, and you owe all South Africans an apology after your posts on Twitter.

...

Your passport was not up to date, and you clearly did not have sufficient empty pages available for a stamp from South African Immigration.

These rules apply all over the world and are not unique in any way to South Africa.

...

What disappoints me even more are the comments below made by South Africans that have been made as a result of your posts.

Comments made on Twitter

"Someone please go down to the airport, find the doos who gave@lancearmstrong a hard time entering SA and kick his#posterboymaterial bum

welcome to Cape Town pitty about the welcome but plz don't judge us on that it's great to have u here!

welcome to SA: promise there will be friendlier faces than immigration, paolo, hear hear! See you on the ride!

...

Lance we are proud South Africans and we are excited to have you here. But rules are rules and every person from any country needs to abide by them and respect them.

Regards

Aki Anastasiou [view responses to Aki's post]

So what we're saying is it's fine to break the rules if you're a celebrity. Well, certain rules that is. I can't help but compare this to certain government officials who only have to cough in the wrong place to find themselves on the front pages of our newspapers. And so it should be - if you do something wrong, the public deserves to know about it.

And what about Jub Jub - yet another South Africa ‘star' to find himself drunk behind the wheel, this time killing four teens and seriously injuring two others. Will he get different treatment in reverence to who he is? Of course not - he killed people. But it's all about breaking or not breaking the law and, just because you're famous, where do we draw the line?

In the UK or US when a celebrity falls off the bus they don't applaud, they hammer them. Even the British royal family find themselves on the front page if they do something wrong. That's ok - they're only human and none of us are infallible. None of us - including Lance Armstrong!