A question of time

WHEN is a crime not a crime, this is the question.

Those who need service delivery burn down some schools. In Langa, housing protesters set ablaze the train station. Students break into shops, vandalise buildings and burn out cars. On arrest they are released on R500 as they are poor activists.

Sometime in the future the homeless and jobless may decide that burning libraries may be effective as they feel marginalised. Some people will blame President Zuma and the Guptas for a failing economy, while others will blame the DA for lack of sanitation.

In any society there will always be issues and someone to blame.

As ordinary rate- and taxpayers what we the silent majority must ask is, for how long can we allow a few anarchists for whatever reasons ruin university property, which we pay for with our taxes? Years ago after his release, former political activist and prisoner Ebrahim Rasool told me that when he was arrested as a youth activist he spent time in prison just thinking.

After his release, his thoughts were centred and public violence was much less of an option.

The point is that some people need to be confined to think as thinking in a familiar environment is difficult. Anarchists that seek to ruin our public institutions and burn trains need time to think. Some people do their best thinking/dreaming in a Synagogue, Church and in Mosque while the priest/ Imam/Rabbi labours on.

Others think in the toilet while others require some time in prison.