Over the past weeks I asked some people why some leaders in the ANC seem to loath the middle class. The President calls them clever blacks, bright people; other leaders are not as sarcastic but you can pick up some dislike of the black middle class. On Friday I got a response that I thought is on point, the wise man called it along the lines of ZANU-PFitis. This is a sickness where leaders of the revolutionary forces of yesteryear, who are now in power, feel that the people who they see as having benefited the most from their progressive policies should be eternally grateful to the ruling elite and demonstrate their gratefulness by returning the ruling elite to power, whatever else the ruling elite does with the power. I think this sickness is exacerbated by the fact the people who are still on the queue to benefit from democracy are sold hope before the elections and are seen to be buying the hope by renewing the mandate of the sellers of the hope. So, when uncle Gwede Mantashe feels that the middle class is ungrateful and should be reminded that they are part of the middle class because the ruling elite came up with progressive policies, we must push back and say, whatever you do, we will never give you a blank cheque. We must say, our love for the movement and the progressive policies that it has implemented does not render us star struck. A lot has been achieved but the lot that has been achieved is less than what should have been achieved by this time. The manner in which we will express this is in the language that causes the ruling elite to sit up and take heed. We must push back and say that when we fought for freedom, we were fighting for rights we were not for privileges. Had we fought for privileges, we would be blindly grateful to the magnanimous dispenser of the privileges. When we sell a good story, we must say that we will not praise a sweeper for sweeping, if the sweeper, after sweeping well, does the garden, then we will sing the praises of the sweeper eternally. If the sweeper sweeps and misses some spots, they are not worthy of our praise. The ANC has swept well but has missed some worrying spots
Posted on: Sun, 08 Jun 2014 19:28:29 +0000
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