Stealing can never be normal
To understand a set-up, one must think outside the “proverbial mental box”.
The best way to steal vast sums, is to get many people to allocate money to one place and then rob that place. Those who planned the theft at VBS Bank allowed municipalities and poor folk to deposit their cash until there was enough to steal. This is not an opportunistic crime but a strategic robbery.
When a drug addict needs a fix, he robs folk at a bus stop. This does not entail much thinking. With VBS, Municipal staff and bank officials were involved. This required planning. The impact on poor black depositors and if the bank could survive the theft by the black elite was not a concern at all.
Oddly, after the theft at VBS Bank, politicians who are now implicated, started emitting politicisms (political utterance and the theory that political factors dominate over others considerations). Some said that VBS bank cannot be permitted fail since it was a black bank that served poor black people.
Ironically, VBS Bank was robbed by influential black politicians and officials who had promised the black depositors that they (the thieves) would protect the poor depositors from poverty.
So, what does the VBS Bank and current politicisms suggest for our collective future?
It suggests that because a black bank was ruined, it is the duty of “others” to save it.
Similarly, since ESKOM or SAA has been robbed regularly over years and is a liability to taxpayers it does not suggest that taxpayers are exempt from sustaining ESKOM and SAA and others SOE’s.
The abuse of taxpayers is a side issue to the irony that “politicism” rules and that rational thinking is subject to political utterances. Thus, when politicians and others rob State Owned Enterprises and municipalities and respond with political talk, it suggests that taxpayers must tolerate this reality.
Rational thinking is needed and civil society must insist on the captivity of those guilty of corruption. If this is not done, then we will follow the remainder of Africa where corruption is part of normal life.
Since some whites historically robbed South Africa, does not imply we must permit some blacks a similar license. Decent folk must ensure that corruption and politicisms is never accepted as normal.
Cllr Yagyah Adams
Cape Muslim Congress