A woman battles the Police at Lwandle informal
settlement during the evictions in the Western Cape. www.iol.co.za
It’s barely two years since the miners were shot and killed for what they believed to be rightfully theirs. Less than a month after the 5th democratic elections were held and the homeless are thrown out on the streets, on the eve of winter. What happened to all the election promises of building the better life for all? What happened to the ‘batho pele’ principle? This people all they ever did was to run away from renting backyard rooms for the rest of their lives and they are trying to raise their own families but it looks like that is not enough to the few elite.
It’s barely two years since the miners were shot and killed for what they believed to be rightfully theirs. Less than a month after the 5th democratic elections were held and the homeless are thrown out on the streets, on the eve of winter. What happened to all the election promises of building the better life for all? What happened to the ‘batho pele’ principle? This people all they ever did was to run away from renting backyard rooms for the rest of their lives and they are trying to raise their own families but it looks like that is not enough to the few elite.
It is disturbing to look at the images of
a school
girl sneaking her books through
razor wire, just to make sure that in all of this, her future may be safe. All
of this no one cares about because the mandate is to erect the e-tolls. The
very same e-toll that has been shoved down the throats
of taxpayers without permission from the “funders”.
What is the difference between this image
and that of miners
being slaughtered on the
hills of Marikana in 2012? Those same family men tried to feed their families
but in the end had to lose their own lives? The image above says it all about
freedom in the new South Africa. Is this the price humanity has to pay for
erecting a shack?
As I watched the evening news on my
favourite channel I could not help but repeat in my heart the famous quote of
Nelson Mandela’s speech in 1994, the man who had also sacrificed his own
families’ happiness for that of the nation. I am sure he somehow knew that this
day would come when he uttered this words; “Never, never and never again shall
it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by
another”. I can’t imagine what Madiba would be saying if he was around to see
this photos.
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