ISSUES AT STAKE: How the rich and the elite manipulated the poor and uninformed

Some would like us to believe that the ordinary have suddenly come to their senses and acted on their long suffering, but the siege itself belies that.

To be honest, the thuggish looting didn’t benefit anyone but those who planned the havoc for their nefarious agendas.

If indeed it was a ‘popular uprising’, it would be sustained no matter what consequences followed.

The looting was simply opportunistic. What we witnessed is the failure of the endless ‘robust debates’ that yielded nothing. The party’s unity façade was exposed.

Last week was a low-scale war that could and should have been better managed, and decisively dealt with eons ago.

Unfortunately, the party’s inertia has affected ordinary people because those who died during the looting and those who languish in jail presently are decidedly poor.

The rest, who have been robbed of their livelihoods, are still poor, while the initiators of this catastrophe may be contemplating their next move.

The varied theories about the geneses of the siege have one common thread; the country’s sluggish security systems.

The blame game that has ensued in the top echelons of the state has resulted in unprecedented uncertainty, because the ordinary are in the dark about the end game.

Like pawns in a life and death game, they are used as fodder in the canon of the warring factions.

Racism and inequality have always been a powder keg waiting for a spark.

The two are not mutually exclusive because the former begets the latter, hence the ‘instigators’ often easily manipulate them to ignite deadly fires.

On one hand, we should acquiesce that racism is the original sin in our country.

On 2 July we addressed the plight of the emigrants’ status in our country.

Last week’s events perhaps vindicate their decision to leave. The Phoenix stand-off is just the tip of the iceberg of this incendiary racial tension, resulting in the ‘are you a looter’ stirs that are palpable whenever different race groups encounter today – a ready situation to be exploited.

On the other hand, inequality is always abused to gain political mileage; a reality the poor should be cognizant of.

To start with, that only white people emigrate to safer shores at times of strife is a myth. Deep-pocketed black people follow suit, leaving the poor to bear the brunt.

The least they can do is cross to neighbouring countries; a sobering thought for those of us who are xenophobic.

Let’s face it, if all provinces had engaged in last week’s despicable acts, some of the poor would have been forced to turn to neighbouring countries for sustenance.

Clearly, the reception wouldn’t be sweet, given our gullibility in being led to treat other Africans as foreigners on their own continent.

Meanwhile, the elite who deceived them in the first place would be sipping champagne in foreign lands, expending the ill-begotten loot from the poor.