By Farouk Araie
Cape Town - This will be a defining year for crippled South Africa.
Many aspiring leaders within the ruling party are engaged political Hari-Kiri as they furiously campaign for top positions in the December coronation.
All of them have become toxic because of the quest for political supremacy. Long-term vision has ceased to exist, as stop-gap solutions are steering the nation into a quagmire of monumental proportions.
We as a nation are at a stage where we have to stand up and be counted. Our beloved country is anchorless, as we begin to drift into stormy waters. Our country is at a crisis as service delivery and mindless poverty explodes into violence.
Stand up for next generation The destitute are running out of options. Our hard-won democracy came into being 27 years ago, and ever since, the fight for survival, equality and emancipation from inequality has been gruesome and painful.
The camaraderie in our rainbow democracy has been punctured by brazen theft on a monumental scale rendering the entire country into a begging bowl for millions and a staircase to heaven for the corrupt elite who from being penniless became overnight billionaires.
Our president is out of touch and out of tune as we hurtle into the eye of the storm. We are running out of energy to power our industrial infrastructure, huge state institutions are bankrupt. With menacing clouds looming over the horizon, we are waiting for salvation.
Corruption in state institutions has reached astronomical proportions. Corruption is a cancerous political disease that has enveloped our land. It has the ability, rapidly and insidiously to infiltrate and destroy the organs of State.
It has killed SAA, Prasa, Eskom, Denel, Transnet, SABC and many others, who have succumbed to this killer disease.
Once embedded, it is very difficult to cut out. Metastasis across society is common.
We must hang our heads in shame at the decline in our moral and ethical standards.
Corruption hurts the poor disproportionately by diverting funds intended for development, undermining government’s ability to provide basic services.
We must ponder as our beloved rainbow nation stares into the abyss.
Madiba taught us that at some time in our lives we were all victims of something, but we get to choose whether or not we will be victimized.
The choice lies with us in 2024. The silent majority have had enough, we cannot send the next generation into the pits of hell.
Our children deserve better.
Cape Times
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