GREY MUTTER lance fredericks Why the meek will inherit
THINK about it: Kaizer Chiefs fans are not soccer hooligans … but when the team dished up one too many disappointing results a small group of hooligans, who probably consider themselves Amakhosi fans, snapped; they almost tore down a stadium, attacked players and coaching staff and, in the process, injured 18 people.
Steve Komphela, realising that he was being blamed for the team’s poor results, and probably also realising that things could spiral even further out of control, resigned as head coach, despite still having a few miles left on his contract.
“If I’m the trigger for this (violence), then maybe one has to say ‘maybe step aside … just stop the switch’,” Komphela said in a statement.
I could not help comparing what happened at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in April to what’s been happening in Kimberley lately.
Residents of the city, finally fed up with perceived mismanagement and poor performance by key officials at the municipality, last week rose up and marched to the municipal offices to demand their removal; it was a show of solidarity from every corner and every cross section of Kimberley. This was not a political march; neither was it a racial march – it was a social march where people from all racial, political and economic backgrounds stood up against something that was affecting everyone.
It seems to me though that while Thursday’s march was a show of solidarity by residents, some elements must have mistakenly believed that it was a show of force; while a splinter group saw the opportunity to run amok, intimidate residents and vandalise property.
The rioting, looting and intimidation could not – in my humble opinion – have been perpetrated by the organisers of Thursday’s march, because those residents were fighting for the improvement and restoration of our city. Looting, vandalism, violence and mayhem would obviously undo everything they were trying to achieve. Besides, the business owners who were targeted do not work for the municipality.
It’s so sad that following the one-day social protest, which was intended to shine a spotlight on incompetent municipal officials and demand a shake-up, the focus is entirely off the original problem and everyone is speaking about the violence, looting and disruptions that at one point was even threatening the start of the school term that starts today.
The other thing that bothers me is that those perpetrating acts of violence and those who took part in a legal social protest are being lumped together as one homogeneous group.
And here is the other thing that bothers me … when things were at their worst during the riots, everyone was hoping and praying that things would get back to “normal”. But “normal” is what caused people to become angry, frustrated in the first place.
For some “normal” would be lives in comfortable homes with three meals a day and snacks in-between, hot water on tap and a cosy bed at night; while for others “normal” would be one meal a day
(if that), water from a communal tap, sleeping in a freezing shanty or even sleeping on the streets, and begging for handouts from people in expensive cars who shrug and dismiss you as if to say: “sorry, I have lots of money … but none for you!”
Kimberley, actually the whole of South Africa, cannot afford to be “normal” any more. We as individuals have to realise that if the privileged and the uplifted do not make an effort to lift up the downtrodden, then the downtrodden could very well, from pure frustration and desperation, drag everything down.
Maybe those who have been identified as the original villains in this drama should consider what the former Amakhosi coach said: “Listen, let me just step aside, if this means they would lessen the violence. Nobody wants violence, and nothing was solved through violence.”
Someone once predicted that “the meek shall inherit the earth”. Could it be that this is simply because the strong, those in power who should be caring for the weak, have proven themselves to be incapable of being in charge anyway?