Ever seen the movie Non-Stop?
This is a 2014 action film starring Liam Neeson. It follows a federal air marshal who must find a killer on an international flight after receiving texts saying a passenger will be executed every 20 minutes until financial demands are met.
As all hell breaks loose, we find at one stage Neeson emerging from the cockpit, where one pilot has become incapacitated. As the air marshal, he is confronted by passengers demanding answers and he tries to soothe their descent into panic by promising everything will be OK.
One specific passenger is certainly not hoodwinked and continues to proverbially throw his toys out of the cot.
In South Africa, which includes all citizens of Boksburg, we find the same scenario: a government trying to hoodwink the masses into believing that all is OK, yet people are dying and the plane is about to fall out of the sky.
Thankfully, as with Non-Stop, a lot of citizens are waking up to the reality that something is amiss and that we have indeed serious problems when it comes to those flying the plane called South Africa.
We have discovered, to our shock and horror, through the commission into state capture, how our previous pilot, Captain Zuma, had steered us towards the mountains and there are now desperate efforts to correct the flight path lest we crash into the sea of oblivion.
We as the citizens of this country are no longer hoodwinked into believing all is OK. And we are demanding answers.
The reality of Eskom’s dire situation is emerging rapidly from the cauldron of corruption. Apparently, the power utility is literally burning R1-billion a month to keep the lights on.
Eskom by all accounts will after the elections be facing an even greater crisis when all the money is finally gone, so can you spell “load-shedding”?
On top of this comes the sobering news that South Africa is edging closer to the fiscal cliff, meaning the income generated by the government will soon not be able to curb the growing expenditures.
And like the hard-nosed action hero Neeson who emerges from behind the curtain to tell the passengers all is and will be OK, so our current captain now and then pops out of the shadows to tell us we must not panic and we must defeat the forces of pessimism.
Yet the plane is nose-diving, people are dying and the lights are about to go out. So, Captain, we are panicking.
Judging by the reaction to a question posted on the Advertiser’s Facebook page on the state of our country, a lot of people from Boksburg think we are definitely about to crash into the sea.
Considering the term “hoodwinked” is used figuratively for veiling the truth, then O Captain my Captain, we acknowledge the truth has been veiled for a long time.
Thankfully, the hood has been removed, for we shall no longer be held captive by the greedy and the corrupt.
The evidence of a collapsing government is all around us. Just look at the state of Boksburg, which is shocking, to say the least.
It is not just the government that engages in hoodwinking the people, because even ‘pastors’ (the term is used very loosely) are duping congregants.
We have so-called spiritual leaders, some of them not even from these shores, who hoodwink the people by pretending to raise the dead, while others claim to have visited heaven to take pictures on a cellphone.
The recent resurrection debacle has prompted Ramaphosa to react, saying the government wants to talk to churches and religious leaders to stop them from taking advantage of South Africans.
“Those who are doing things that are completely shocking, of trying to hoodwink the whole nation and saying that someone has been raised from the dead, it is actually bringing the name of the Lord and of churches into disrepute,” said the President.
We agree, Mr President, but the problem is that some pastors are simply replicating the government’s actions, so go figure.
Our moral and spiritual compass remains broken. Yet, we can choose to remain hoodwinked because of ignorance or we can open our eyes by applying some critical thinking.
During the Dark Ages, people were easily hoodwinked because of a lack of access to the truth. This is not the case today, so there remains no excuse to continue on this foolish path of believing all is OK.
Be alert and be vigilant, for there are many wolves in sheep’s clothing, not just in the churches.
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