It’s time for all of us to get angry and fight the thieves of hope

Dear DM168 Readers,

This week I write this letter to you with a heavy heart. I have been dragged down by a feeling of melancholy that has crept from my head to my toes like a malevolent shadow monster.

Why do I feel this way when my life is so blessed?

I have an abundance of unconditional love and affection, from my partner, my sons, my family, my friends, my colleagues. I have enough. I live in a small, warm, comfortable, inverter-backed-up home in a relatively safe complex, surrounded by good neighbours who watch out for each other.

I have a job that gives me a sense of purpose and belonging and pays the bills for rates, levies, bond, petrol, car, food on the table and good public schools for my sons.

Every day I have the exquisite momentary privilege of stepping away from the confines of my laptop to immerse my hands in the soil, tend to my vegetable garden and feel the thrill of growing brinjals, rocket, strawberries, cabbage, beans, basil, mint, dhania, parsley and chilies to augment our family meals.

Yet this week despite my life of plenty, the shadow monster stalks me. As my fingers thump this keyboard, I think I have finally figured out why.

Normally, when the horror of our country seeps out of my Daily Maverick Inbox like a slew of seething sewage, I don’t let it get to me. I hold on to hope. I cling to my belief that there are good South Africans out there and eventually by sheer will, critical mass and force, this good will triumph.

Three stories this week throttled my hope and made me not so sure any more.

It started on Sunday when Daily Maverick’s Kevin Bloom and our colleagues at City Press and Rapport revealed from the Eskom intelligence files the full extent of the evil that has brought not just Eskom, but our economy and our country to its knees.

Then I read from my colleague Cathy Dlodlo about how the NPA has seemingly stuffed up the first State Capture case in Bloemfontein, the Vrede dairy case. Legal experts and anti-corruption campaigners have argued that despite the spin-doctoring, Shamila Batohi’s NPA is a very long way from being able to successfully litigate complex State Capture cases.

The final nail in the coffin of hope was reading about how the DA-led coalition fell apart in my home town of Tshwane, with Cope and other unknown coalition members selling out to the ANC and EFF.

The chaos of coalitions in Johannesburg, Ekhuruleni and now Tshwane has made me lose faith in all political parties. I struggle to find any party that puts people, citizens and residents above political ideology and positions of power.

What the leaked Eskom intelligence reports say to me is that the people we voted into power for the last 29 years, and their fellow travellers in the elite business and political class who share their avaricious agenda, do not care if the country collapses. They do not care if jobs are lost or if our children are starved of any meaningful future.

They do not care if professionals leave the country in droves and the tax base shrinks. They do not care if the working class sinks into mass unemployment. They do not care about the poverty and indignity that their wanton greed has unleashed onto an already frighteningly unequal society.

They are hollow men and women with hearts of stone who wash their hands in 15-year-old whisky, eat sushi off naked bodies and flush it down with overpriced champagne. Their Porsches, Maseratis, multi-million-rand mansions and the designer swag they drape themselves in matter more, much more than we, the 60 million people.

What the other two stories say to me is our ability to fight against the tide of evil is severely compromised by the weakness and collusion of our law enforcement and the myopia, polarisation and fragmentation of our opposition parties..

I’ve had enough of all of this. It only serves the interests of the crooked if I, or we stay sad and sorry for ourselves, driven into cocoons of despair. Sigmund Freud used to say: “Depression is anger turned inwards.” To hell with that. It’s time to stop being sad and to start getting mad.

It’s time to get livid at all those responsible for letting our country become a mafia state. And channel that anger in ways that will decimate the destroyers of hope.

For starters, let’s commit to voting every greedy self-serving politician and political party out of any semblance of power when next we have the chance.

Let’s do everything we can to fix everywhere we can like Gift of the Givers is doing (no wonder our Daily Maverick readers all unanimously said they would rather have Dr Imtiaz Sooliman as President (as opposed to any politician.)

We need to just keep on keeping on. Teaching, building, making, growing, caring, serving, feeding, creating. We can also do much more to fight against the evil that has possessed our body politic.

March, lay charges, protest, investigate, expose, write, pursue, persist, and litigate. Like Gun Free South Africa (GFSA) is doing. GFSA and families whose loved ones have been murdered or injured by guns that crooked cops sold to gangsters are embarking on a critical class action suit against Police Minister Bheki Cele and the state, as detailed in our front page story by Caryn Dolley. Now there is a story of hope. And for those of you keen to read more about the Eskom intelligence files, Ethan Van Diemen explains how the crooked cartels sabotaged power stations and instigated higher levels of load shedding. Maybe we need many more class action suits against the politicians who have allowed mafia cartels to ruin our lives.

Please support all that we do by becoming a Maverick Insider and getting your DM168 e-edition for free, or by going to your nearest retail outlet to buy our latest print edition. We can only do what we do because of those of you insiders and newspaper buyers who support us. Please share your thoughts on how to bring more hope into our sad state of affairs by writing to me at [email protected]

Yours in defence of truth and hope,

Heather

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper which is available for R25 at Pick n Pay, SPAR and Exclusive Books. For your nearest stockist, please click here.