What is happening to our country? If you watch the news or follow social media, every day there seems to be a new riot (ahem, excuse me) I mean protest happening.
Have we become a society of two-year-olds? I have a two-year-old and she loves to throw a tantrum if she doesn’t get her way. Sitting on the floor crying and thrusting her arms and legs into the air. But this I understand, she doesn’t know how to control her emotions yet and is still learning that she will not get everything she wants all the time, but that’s because she is two.
My issue is that we are talking about adults, or at least near adults, when we look at the university students.
Take the University of Cape Town, I mean what the hell is going on there? When I was studying, if I was to take irreplaceable artworks and burn them in protest, I would have been arrested at the very least, but most likely would have received a serious hiding in the process.
When did violence underpin protest? When did we start accepting this as valid behaviour? And it’s not just the students; reports have come in that the town of Sabie in the Lowveld has been under siege from protestors, threatening the lives of the community, closing down businesses and burning tyres, etc. North Coast Durban has the same problem, with a councillor’s house and car being burnt to the ground.
I understand that life is hard, especially when the government decides to destroy our economy on a whim, but if you are angry that a bus is late, how is burning the bus going to help or, even worse, how is burning a shop, which has nothing to do with buses, ever going to solve the issue?
The problem is that people feel that the only way they can get attention from Government is if they have a violent protest. This speaks to our leadership or lack thereof, Government is meant to be available to the people, but just isn’t. Then there are agents of chaos that are pushing their racially motivated agenda to create strife. When we should be looking for solutions to the challenges that effect all of us, there are those who just create problems where they don’t need to be.
Tearing open old wounds to serve their own purpose and is quite simple, look at Zimbabwe. Life is tough for the average citizen, but not for those in power, their lives are sweet.
Chaos and strife is good business for those in power and that’s why they promote it, while saying that they condemn it. I only hope that some common sense will prevail, but I fear with the current leadership we will see more of this anarchy, because it serves them to have us divided.
