ALBERTON – When we became a democracy in 1994, there was the catchphrase “equality for all”, meaning we are all equal. South Africans would live equal lives, and in a sense we are well on the way to that ideology, just not in the way we thought we would. Today we are all equally without power, township, shack dweller and Meyersdal resident. We are all equally affected by crime; we are all equally forced to pay higher rates, greater taxes and hidden taxes like e-toll. We are all equally uneducated, unemployed and unimpressed.
Yes my people, we have freedom, the freedom to watch our country rot before our eyes, to walk along the potholed roads through streams of effluent flowing into wetlands filled with illegal dumping. Yes my people, we are equal, equally disadvantaged!!
This is not the freedom that so many laid their lives down for, this is not the bright future we envisaged, especially not now. This is the candle-lit nightmare that you just can’t wake up from. We the people are not important to those who roam the halls of power enriching themselves, empowering themselves and really enjoying themselves at our expense. Never and never and never again echo the words of the great man, yet here and now the oppression of the majority of the people in this country by a ruling minority continues. The colour lines are gone, now it’s about money, those that have and those that don’t, but even those rich fools in their castles of gold are reduced to lowly peasants when the power goes out, meaning that we are all equal. Equally sitting in the dark.
