We are living in a sick society
South African society is very, very sick indeed.
A protestor gestures towards a fire against the backdrop of the Union buildings during the Day Of Action march – a civil society and opposition party protest to Union Buildings, Pretoria, against the presidency of Jacob Zuma. Picture: Yeshiel Panchia
It is bad enough that James and Rosina Komape lost their five-year-old son, Michael, when he drowned in faeces after falling into a pit toilet at a school in Limpopo in 2014.
Now, as they live that anguish, their pain has been made worse by some of the insensitive remarks by a lawyer defending the government in a damages suit the Komapes have brought.
Basic education department counsel Simon Phaswane suggested that the family were bringing the case as a way of making money out of their son’s death and that their testimony seemed to have been orchestrated.
That callous inquisition seems to sum up the way this department – and many others in the government – treat poor people in this country.
Whether it’s failing to provide safe, water-borne toilets; abandoning vulnerable people in the health system to unqualified organisations (and seeing 144 of them die in the process); or carrying coffins of paupers on the back of an open truck, the poor people in society are repeatedly treated without dignity.
Mahatma Gandhi said: “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.”
By that standard, South African society is very, very sick indeed.
For more news your way, follow The Citizen on Facebook and Twitter.
