Blame game is as stale as the Oscar trial
This year, we celebrate 20 years of democracy, with the fifth free and fair elections to take place in May.
Yet, after all this time, we still hold onto the past, which is about as irritating as watching lawyers debate the importance of scratches on a door in a murder trial.
Case in point – during the recent Presidency’s 20-year review it was claimed that widespread Internet and cellular services in South Africa became a reality only with the dismantling of the apartheid state.
It was, therefore, claimed that massive advancements in telecommunications in South Africa happened only thanks to the end of apartheid.
While the document credited the former regime with setting up broadcast, postal and fixed-line telephone infrastructure, it added that these lagged behind global advancements in telecommunications in many respects.
While the government of 1994 can claim to usher in a new dawn of democracy, it seems now also to be the saviour of the Rainbow Nation that miraculously made possible widespread home satellite systems, Internet services and mobile cellular telephony.
Talk about giving yourself a pat on the back, even though, after 20 years, SA is still way behind some of the developed world when it comes to mass communication.
Another case in point – it seems the FF Plus was recently very upset by alleged remarks made by Sandile Memela, director of the Department of Arts and Culture, concerning the Oscar Pistorius murder trial.
An article was published under Memela’s name, where he claims Oscar would be a hero if Reeva were a black man, while he argues the point if Pistorius would have ever appeared in court if a black man was shot.
It was also mentioned in the article that white people collect guns only to kill animals and black people.
According to Dr Pieter Mulder, of the FF Plus, Memela goes ahead and says that whites have all the wealth, and that black people are perpetrators because they are unemployed and poverty-stricken.
Basically, even after 20 years, it seems, according to the article, that the white man in the country has all the power and all the say. Last time I checked, for 20 years the ANC has been in power.
Third point in case – the Advertiser recently received a letter debating the slow progress of the Boksburg Lake. And yes, the apartheid state is blamed.
I am just glad that the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 didn’t go missing in South Africa. It would have also been blamed on the former regime.
I can only imagine someone sitting in the plane, saying a silent prayer as the engine roars to life (let us be honest, it is a bit frightening when you know you are about to go airborne), wondering how the former government is going to sabotage the flight.
While the Malaysia Air plane disappeared, it seems, into the Bermuda Triangle, you can only jest where the former regime would have hidden it – probably Botswana.
Then there is the case of the Front National, a newly-formed party campaigning for Afrikaner self-determination in the 2014 election, objecting to Julius Malema’s alleged comments about so-called “Afrikaner control” of South Africa and the country’s Revenue Service.
The Front National says that the comments are disturbing in that they perpetuate communist myths formulated in the 1960s, that a secret cabal of Afrikaners controlled the South African economy.
That sounds a lot like the Illuminate, instead they are now Afrikaners who have, 20 years after the first election, somehow managed to hold onto power. Really.
And so, whenever something goes wrong in the country, if it be the power outages, or the roads falling apart, or money that goes missing, blame the former regime.
Really, it is quite low to put the blame our current state of communication network on apartheid.
Yes, the 1994 government did inherit some faults and certain things needed to be corrected, but 20 years have passed. There has been plenty of time to built a bridge over troubled waters and to get the power cables fixed, address the needed power station upgrades, get the communication network up and running and build some proper houses.
Human Rights Day was celebrated on March 21, but the lack of rights in this country is probably still blamed on apartheid.
Across the border, the same propaganda continues in Zimbabwe, where the evil rule of old Rhodesia is punted to instil fear in the people.
I think it is time for the government to wake up and smell the coffee – there is a new generation of people coming through the ranks who don’t really care about pre-1994.
They live for the here and now, and demand that the government of now must take care of their needs and take responsibility instead of passing the buck.
Yes, just maybe, there is some validity in the argument of the lake being doomed by poor progress during the apartheid era, but come on, the metro has had more than ample time to fix what needed to be resolved.
Yet, the CBD and the lake are still disaster zones.
And why would Oscar get away with murder if the shot victim was black?
Some of these arguments are so absurd and illogical, it at times feels that it might be better to also climb on board Flight 370 and fly into the Twilight Zone.
I wonder what will be blamed next?
Probably rhino poaching – government after all needs an answer soon as to why this bloody debacle is only worsening.
Sorry, but for those who think for themselves in this land of murky deals, the blame for all our woes is on the shoulders of the government of the now.
And this is why the next election will be so interesting – it is going to more of the same or will someone finally step up to break the shackles of the past to find a solution for tomorrow?
