Arrest the crooks and make us a happy nation

We are wallowing in wretchedness. Every day we get out of the wrong side of the bed. We make bad neighbours. We are intolerant motorists, throw zap signs to each other for little reason. We bark at waiters, scold car guards, are rude to shop assistants. The list goes on.

We are not nice people. It doesn’t take a shrink to give us the reason.

We are governed by a mix of incompetent and corrupt politicians. They have brought this country to its knees. Municipalities have been plundered and wrecked, leaving towns and cities dirty, ugly and dysfunctional. Roads have become sinkholes and basic services are non-existent. There’s not a department or SOE that hasn’t been tainted.

What are South Africans, the peaceful, taxpaying, honest ones, craving for the most?

The answer is quite straightforward and unmistakable. We want to see the Hawks do a countrywide swoop on those we already know are complicit.

Imagine the collective whoop of joy when the mastermind is marched from his bunker at Nkandla and into a police van. Heh-heh. And the Free State farm thief leaving an NEC meeting in handcuffs. And the Bosasa boss being wrested from the safety of his money vault.

When this day dawns, we will smile again and enjoy breathing the air cleansed from rotten, smelly creatures. It will be the start of a new dispensation of happy people when the haves will be only too willing to assist the have nots by paying higher taxes in the knowledge that the Treasury won’t be plundered.

See, there will be an atmosphere of optimism all round, instead of the present belief that our country will never come right. Psychologists tell us happy people forge better relationships and increase social support for each other – as well as see things from new perspectives.

This surely is what we are longing for. Why must we continue to allow a sick leadership to infect our spiritual health and the chance of the poor sharing material wealth?

The ballot box must reflect this burning desire. If not, it’s back to murky business as usual, with a president surrounded by the same looters.

The smell remains, and the nation still a wretched lot.

Cliff Buchler.

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