Watching TV clips of the sheer number of Zandspruit marchers walking to Mayor Parks Tau’s offices reminded me of the US’s Million Man March a few decades back.
I then sat back and thought, but man, this thing is simple to solve. Marching all the way from Zandspruit to the ivory towers of Tau’s offices in Braamfontein was a waste of time, energy and an abuse of oneself.
I realised this thing was very easy to solve – with just the drop of a paper into a box, you are done. You don’t have to labour and endure kilometre after kilometre of endless walking on hungry stomachs, risking dehydration and adding to your blood sugar problems when you can just stand in a queue for a little while and drop your paper in a box.
You have an election coming up and you can simply use the power of your vote to change the status quo. You don’t need those energy-draining marches, the toyi-toying, the barricading of streets, the burning of tyres and adding to the already-troubled climatic situation, and throwing missiles at the mighty State police who are armed to the teeth, thereby risking being shot and killed or arrested and subjected to humiliating court-after-court appearances.
Why labour so much and risk your lives and those of your children when you can simply go and cast your vote and change the regime that has become power drunk and no longer listens to you, and only feed their own bellies? And have you seen how big those bellies are? All of them, especially our dear Mantashe.
Isn’t that the delightful element of democracy, that you can remove someone from power without shedding blood? You can simply change a power-drunk regime which continues to make empty promise after empty promise, every election year, year after year, and denies you your Constitutional right to water, electricity and decent housing and living conditions – demands which were contained in the memorandum of the Zandspruit marchers that Parks Tau gave a cold shoulder to.
The problem with black voters is that we continue to support people, individuals and organisations at our own expense, such that we tend not to recognise the prophets of false promises, whose sole agenda it is to continue to lay their hands on the till to feed those bulging tummies in front of them.
Why vote for the same rubbish which doesn’t care about you when there is plenty other rubbish to choose from. You never know, maybe this other rubbish you have been ignoring for years can be better rubbish, after all. You can only know that by voting this other rubbish into power, and you still have the option after five years to kick it out of the power corridors, not physically, but by voting.
An election is fast approaching on 3 August and you don’t need all those energy-draining marches.
Just go and vote – and vote wisely, finish and klaar.
