You know there is something that bewilders me about the thinking capacity of my fellow South Africans, especially my African comrades.
Why are we so gullible and always fall victim to one and the same scam that is in our faces all the time? I don’t know what it is … If it’s not political parties, then it’s the church pastors, if it’s not church pastors then it’s the same old pyramid schemes in new formats – and we always fall for them.
Although it’s slightly different in the case of our South African women handing their babies to strangers, it can be a case worth making a point about. While ‘don’t give your children to strangers’ has been said time and time again, the persuasive power of these confidence tricksters seems to get the better of these women and they often tend to forget and then fall prey to the tricksters.
Why are we like this? Why can’t we learn that once bitten, should be twice shy and that an injury to one, is an injury to all. If it has happened to so and so, it should never happen to me as I have learnt a lesson from my brother, my sister, mom, dad, cousin or nephew. Why should all of us as a nation fall victim to the same scheme?
Do these tricksters possess potent muthi that immediately sends our brains, thoughts and memory to sleep mode when they come in front of us and open their mouths wanting to con us? You know, these three ‘P’ words [politicians, pastors and pyramid schemes] are a problem for the brain of an ordinary South African.
One pastor has been doing rounds in this country, conning people by selling them pictures of himself that he alleges he took while in heaven when he died and went there and later returned. Those pictures are going for a fortune and he is making a killing from the gullible.
Politicians, on the other hand, are now doing their rounds for the upcoming municipal elections, and they are making the same old fashioned promises that have become a scratch song, but we’re buying and falling for them, big time. When are we going to learn our lesson?
A pyramid scheme known as Triple M is currently selling like hot cakes and we all know the problems with pyramid schemes. Pyramid schemes will pay the first few people only.
They use the monies that are being invested by those who join the scheme later. But the numbers swell to such an extent that it has no money anymore to pay anyone, and those who joined later then stand to lose out. However, the pioneers of the scheme, who happen to be tricksters, will have already made their bucks as they are the first ones in the line of payment.
So please, let’s not give away our hard-earned money to some slick pastors, our trust to some unscrupulous politicians and our investment to tricksters in pyramid schemes, including our newborn babies to some sweet-tongued con artists that are on the prowl.
