Going bonkers over bunkers

So, this is where we find ourselves in 2011. We have, north of the continent, the now deceased Muammar Gaddafi — notwithstanding his bunkers from which he ultimately had to run away from, not because they did not provide him with enough comfort, but because they could not withstand the people’s will.

We now, unbelievably so, have our own bunkers in SA. In South Africa! We have a sitting national president, using that term extremely loosely, building underground bunkers. Presidency spokesperson Mac Maharaj attests that it is the president’s own funds being used. We are supposed to believe that this is the same president who a couple of years back, while facing corruption charges, testified he had no funds.

So now in Nkandla there are helicopter pads accompanied by underground tunnels. Please pinch me, no, shoot me in the head if it helps me and the nation wake up. Why is it that South Africa — the last in the continent to “achieve freedom” — cannot wake up to this particular con? What has become of this nation, this spirit that held all of us together through the turbulent 1980s? What has become of the people who stood in front of the “hippos” and took rubber bullets? Are we so under the spell that we see not what is afoot? Where is the outrage?

We stood together as a nation when it mattered! Together as one! This is the nation that at one point looked at the continent and attested we could do better. Really? Where are the legal heads? The Harris’s? Where are the voices of reason? The Detainees’ Parents Support Committee? Where are the challengers of the status quo?

The number of phone and email interceptions in SA outnumber those in the US. I cannot for a minute assume the ruling party and powers that be are not aware of this legal trampling of civilian rights.

No-one within the ruling party has the nerve or temerity to stand up against this practice. They are all tainted and cannot and will not stand up against the machinery. They have all had their hands in the cookie jar without exception. From day one everyone has had a turn except the people.

What a shame!

The southern tip of Africa, following in the same despotic footsteps as the rest. The world observes, we observe, on the sidelines, hoping someone, something will change. We all stand by idly as our country is plundered, pillaged and soon we will be at each others’ throats as the connected few flea.

So the previous was and the current is.