Take your jargon and buzz off!

I HATE buzzwords.

Politicians use them liberally.

They feel it somehow makes them sound knowledgeable.

Put on any politico’s speech on television or radio and slash me if they don’t use the term “grassroots level”.

Do they know the meaning?

Have they ever brought themselves down to that level and experienced what most of their supporters know simply as existence?

The words “keynote address” flashed around at political rallies and indabas carry with them the necessary pomp and authority one would accord the main speech.

Until the time I heard the Nkandla tycoon say the following during an address: “What is this keynote address they say I must give. Hee hee hee. There is a key and a note.”

If Number One doesn’t know the meaning, heaven help the man in the street, the one who is at grassroots level.

Here’s another one for you – social cohesion! Sounds idyllic. It would be great to have it nationwide.

It gives one a nice warm feeling. One of togetherness. Until one smart alec I heard on a radio news broadcast being interviewed destroyed it for me.

Wanting to sound eloquent and wise, he said, “What we need is social coercion.”

Coercion, as any wise man worth his salt would know, means forced, the opposite of willing.

In good public speaking, just because you want to sound clever does not mean you can stick a clever word in anywhere.

Mind you, I could suggest where he could stick “coercion”!

To a more poignant example.

If I had to ask you to explain to me what the term “the poorest of the poor” means, could you?

Well, a few months ago, it was illustrated to me in full, living colour, and it haunts me regularly.

I was on the tenth floor of a building in central Durban, looking out of the window and taking in the sights and smells of our beloved city.

Way down below was the open car park of the building, which was relatively full.

My eye was drawn to a bakkie without a canopy, which contained a few gardening tools.

There was just one chap sitting in the back, leaning against the cab.

He was dressed in ragged work clothes – the typical garb of a casual labourer.

A man who works and gets paid for the day, feeds himself from that meagre earning and takes home what little is left.

I couldn’t believe the human drama that next played itself out.

Three young rascals approached him from different angles.

Two of them caught his arms and pinned them to the body of the van, while the third scoundrel went through the unfortunate man’s pockets.

They must have got away with just cents. That incident taught me the meaning of one buzz term at least.

That unfortunate soul at the back of the bakkie was what you would call the “poorest of the poor”.

His dire state did not stop three despicable human hyenas from making him feel even more worthless and depressed than when he left home early that morning.

Similar scenarios occur daily throughout our city and country.

It’s time our political caretakers stop with the buzzwords and are more proactive in getting rid of crime. In recent weeks and months, families have been devastated by the wanton killings of their kin. Bright futures have been cut short. People who could build this country are snuffed out with regularity.

Here’s a buzz term for the fat cat politicos – “criminals are getting away with murder!”.

Literally. Do something about it. Enough already!