Yes, As Amazing As That Sounds!
Now this friend of mine is extremely capable, intelligent and caring BUT she has one flaw which has placed her in a bit of a pickle.
Within the group that she finds herself she finds constantly that when new people are introduced to the group they avoid her like the plague, whisper behind her back, do not believe a word that she says and never vote her into any position of power despite her proven virtues of intelligence and caring. Let’s use the initial ‘D’ for my friend.
“What would make a group act in such a manner towards her?” you may ask.
Simply put – she is an asshole when it comes to social interaction and empathy along with the fact that she declared “war” on someone in power WITHOUT having the proper evidence in hand to crush this person who is clearly incompetent, lazy and ‘on the take’. Let’s use the initial ‘A’ for the lazy incompetent!
Moving on years after this ‘war’ was declared we find ourselves in a situation where the majority of supporters are in ‘A’s’ camp and ‘D’ finds herself thwarted at every turn, even if she uses lawyers or the courts or ombudsmen to prove her case. ‘A’ has become an object of sympathy and the people in the group have become immune to the fighting and transgressions going on on a daily basis.
The only way for ‘D’ to win this battle is if ‘A’ dies or retires as ‘A’ has done a very successful job of misusing his power to ensure that every new entry into the group ‘becomes aware’ of how “dysfunctional and racist” ‘D’ is. Yes – an accusation of racism was brought by an employee of ‘A’ against ‘D’ and she lost.
To all intents and purposes ‘D’ is on the cold, dark streets looking in the window at ‘A’ as he celebrates around a warm fire!
And so the Catch-22 situation continues with ‘D’ becoming more and more frustrated and alienating more and more of her supporters. Even me, I must confess, as her attitude now just plain SUCKS and I find myself in a quandary as I can see the merits in her arguments and oversight of the finances and management of this group largely controlled by ‘A’.
So what is happening now in that group is that the investments by members are growing less, they are an unhappy little lot who have lost their dignity and pride whilst the seeds of distrust that have been sown are eating away at them and their children.
Let’s expand the above situation a little bit and compare that to the politics in our land – ‘D’ could be any opposition party; the DA, the EFF, you name them and ‘A’ could be the ANC.
So what has happened since 1994 is this: Opposition parties have only become known for how they highlight the crap work and people in the ANC and, as a result, we the people of South Africa either ignore politics or fail to believe any of the wild and more than possibly true accusations slung at the ANC.
The constant fighting and bickering is managing to shape a country of doubters and citizens who believe more in failure than in success. We are bringing our children up in a combative environment that sows the seeds of mistrust in us at an early age – not healthy.
So, what did we do:
- We turned to sport as a unifier, only for that to be hijacked by the politicians
- We turned to business to demonstrate our winning ways, only for that to be politicised
- We turned to our churches for solace, only for those to be politicised
- We turned to our schools to give spark to our youth, only for that to be politicised
The examples are many.
We continue to elect and then allow politicians to tell us what to do INSTEAD of electing representatives that will DO what WE want done which is quite simply to give us back our PRIDE.
Alan Straton
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