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Get our people housed, working and happyDear Mr Jacob Zuma: I enjoyed our chat on the plane last year and you appeared to be completely decent and up for the job. So how can you reconcile the fact that you want “all politicians to show restraint and show leadership” when your own Mr Julius Malema is allowed – without your restraint – to say whatever or threaten whomever he likes? You insult your own supporters and public with your hypocrisy, allowing your party to justify “hate speak” through the courts and yet you refuse to listen to a man such as Mr Zwelinzima Vavi, who has far more in common and greater interest in the ordinary man on the street than any other ANC MP I have heard from recently.
Mr Vavi – now that is an interesting man, and don’t be scared of the Cosatu/Communist label.
He is rather like Mr Mbhazima Shilowa but more politically savvy.
Mr and Mrs Vavi enjoy the good things in life, they don’t want people living like Chinese state factory workers.
The difference between him and many others is that he is smart and I like his political clarity.
When he calls for lifestyle audits of all politicians and government employees, we must say, why not?
How refreshing would it be to see all people, as Mr Vavi says, “black, white or yellow” audited. As he says, there would be no racism involved, simply the fact that if you are in a position of public trust, you need to be squeaky clean.
So who will blink first? I think ALL our politicians and senior government people need to know that their affairs are being scrutinised constantly and that political office is not a payoff or financial fun factory, but actually a position of responsibility that requires more than random appearances or a big hat at the opening of parliament.
All of the above, the hypocrisy, the clear immaturity, the need for independent scrutiny by SARS itself and therefore the fact that everyone knows that the public is watching – is vital. Without open-handedness, our system of democracy and its ability to survive in the long term will be as questionable as the old order that Mr Eugene Terre’Blanche found so clean and stable!
Two wrongs do not make a right and the fact that apartheid’s crimes seemingly are being repeated in what is now a democracy, shows that the blame game – or “they did it”, as it was called at junior school – continues at pace today in South Africa.
Sadly – no, tragically – Sharpeville film clips look remarkably similar to the “service delivery” riots and the police reaction to them, happening every week in South Africa 16 years after the ANC took control and two months before the world descends on South Africa. No doubt, the VIPs still will receive large black German vehicles in which to ride around and, who knows, even our junior assistant ministers may have to cut down their convoys to 10 vehicles to accommodate the Fifa sycophants with sufficient Mercs.
I personally don’t believe that South Africa will go the same way as Zimbabwe; the ANC is smarter than that and our politicians require far more in order to live their high lives than mere “Aid” can supply. There needs to be big business and a buoyant economy.
I do, however, want someone to work on a new 21st century struggle song for those born since 1990, those who came into South Africa after the date of Nelson’s release. After all, these guys are now 20 years old. The title could be “Shop the Harmer, Kill the War”. Now let’s see how long it takes them to arrest me for thinking up such double entendre hate speech as that!
Let’s get our people housed, working and happy. Let’s kick the bottom of every extorting official or MP and name and shame them – DA, Freedom Front, ANC, anyone.
Let’s talk to each other and give South Africa the stability it requires to build an economy that can help, house, feed and educate all our families and youth.
If we don’t, then all of us will be guilty of the crime of indifference, a crime that allowed apartheid to survive 10 to 15 years longer than it should ever have been – a crime we all can end today!
Ian Kilbride
For more articles, visit www.iankilbride.com.
