Editorial
Johannesburg - On Wednesday, the government aligned Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) helped arrange a one-day general strike against the spiralling cost of living.
It was tantamount to the ANC marching against the ANC, for implementing ANC policies which the ANC itself had formulated and for which it has been voted into power at every general election since 1994.
Some of the marchers included members of the ANC’s head office staff from Luthuli House – most of whom have battled to be paid their salaries for months.
The irony will not end there.
Wednesday’s general strike was undertaken by the minority of South Africans who have formal jobs.
It will have cost the economy of tens of millions of Rands and yet according to South African Federation of Trade Unions (and former Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi will have achieved absolutely nothing.
Very soon, the self-same ANC allies will be campaigning for the ANC to be returned to government in the next general elections in 2024.
We should not be surprised.
The ANC has the same cognitive dissonance when it comes to protesting against the management of failing State-Owned Enterprises – run by its deployed cadres. The one part of the ANC that doesn’t protest against the tripartite alliance leaders appears to be the ANC Women’s League when it comes to fighting patriarchy, GBV and domestic violence, even during the so-called Women’s Month which ends next week.
In the meantime, this country circles ever closer to the drain. Earlier this week, a video was released of a group burning water tanks donated by the Gift of The Givers in Tongaat, in KZN. They were protesting about service delivery – by destroying the one thing that did give them something.
We are a very sick society. We need to be inoculated. We need to get health. But this won’t happen under the current administration – because it’s the virus.