After my last commentary I decided to shut my beak and drift off into a sort of late winter sleep. (Dunno why, but I am plagued by seditious dreams where I handbag certain ZA politicians on their vacuous heads. Wonder why?).
As I said, I was drifting off, when I read of Gven Matashe's speech to the Black Management Forum, where he maintains "Corruption in SA is not systemic" My mind went onto 1000 revs as I choked up my morning coffee!!!! What about the Arms Deal, what about the bankrupties of the Eastern Cape and Limpopo, what about the Aurora mine scandal, where the government allowed 2000 miners to go unpaid for 2 years, what about Edu Solutions.......I go no further, because I am succumbing to vertigo.(Never mind Nkandla)
My first thought was that some black shack burger, had put two and two together and had given the good man (Matashe I mean), a resounding klap on his head which resulted in some cranial disturbance. I scrambled into Google. Much to my surprise, nothing of the sort had taken place.
Was the irrefutably wise and intelligent Matashe suffering from myopia ( a short-sightedness that can be corrected by correctly calibrated glasses.) Back to Google. No the SA spectacle business is still functioning. Yes, you still do get two eye-glasses when you buy a pair of specs! So far so good, at least corruption has not hit the spectacle business (yet).
Back to deep reflection. Deep in thought I realized that from an ANC perch, (those seats have to be solid because these guys believe in good food), there is some sort of deep fog, which does not allow for joining the dots. Curtained off by first class travel, cholesterol rich foods and privilege, the world just looks different. Well, wow.
According to modern psychology, there are 4 way to solve or not solve a problem. The worst ist to deny the problem. "No , we have no corruption in our country". The 2nd worst way not to solve a problem is where Mr. Matashe is at home. "Yes, there is some corruption, but it is not systemic" (There is something out there, but it is not serious......the press, the media, jealousy....are to blame...) One step further on is to acknowledge the problem and do something to sort of solve the problem. The last option is to define the problem and solve the problem.
Oh sad day for th ANC. Oh sad day for SA.
Every thinking South African knows that the SA government schools are ghastly, that SA government hospitals are awful, understaffed, underpaid etc. It should not be so, South Africa is a rich country, but the political elite are skimming off, so the really needy are not getting that bootleg up that they should be getting.
So people like Mr Matashe, with his statement "that SA does not suffer from systemic corruption" are telling us, "Dumb down, do not believe what you see, what you hear, what your friends are telling you, what you read. In fact, close down your brain, everything is o.k."
Stupidity is legal world wide, (ZA does not have a monoply on it) but we sure do have circles where IT is celebrated.
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