POETIC LICENCE RABBIE SERUMULA
A TRAVELLER who finds shelter in my home has no right to tell my family, without running it past me first, that criminals may be planning to attack my house on Saturday; for he is bound to peddle panic mode. And South Africans panic differently, God knows they would make light of any situation darker than a hole the money that funds crimes against humanity fades into.
It was irresponsible and unfortunate that the American Embassy did not consult the South African government before publishing an alert about a possible terrorist attack in Sandton.
It is, however, very difficult not to take the alert seriously when masses are murdered and maimed at shebeens and taverns. Townships under siege, the people unleashed, blessed with basic instincts to barricade roads with burning tyres and set ablaze municipal buildings.
But it doesn’t help to tell passengers that there is a hole in the ship, rather give that information to those who run the ship – God knows we have a lovehate relationship with those who run the South African ship.
Most say we lean closer to hate, but the ballot reads from a different page and speaks a different tongue.
We are prone to our propensity to undermine those who run this ship. I wonder if we would have taken the alert with a different pinch of salt had it come from the South African government.
But if the words of the traveller are true, let’s pray you are not having a glance at what is left of this column from a burning, floating piece of newspaper gliding to the ground at the 33rd Johannesburg Pride March, emitting amber particles following a terror attack in Sandton, now a dystopia – lowered to look identical to Alexandra, with similar structural flaws and structural injustices.
The milk and honey in the continent’s financial hub would be spoiled and contaminated, erupted and spewed into Alexandra, leaving the township drenched with sour streets and bitter homes; neither of which are new to the township.
It would be life as usual with Sandton puffing more smoke than usual, and seeming a different view to the township – where people have nothing. They keep wondering at the prominence of heightened activity for the likes of terror groups.
Nobody told the American ambassador that we don’t take kindly to threats, that we are the kind who have been taught by the internet to make jokes off them instead.
If the terrorists are going to use cellphones to detonate their bombs, one joke read, may nobody tell them that coverage is bad during load shedding, and perhaps Eskom may save us for a change, not short-change and leave us in the dark, again.
Perhaps the lack of seriousness lies partially at the feet of our government, which has rendered the people reliant and complacent with a collective mind, set for failure – nothing that comes out of this is good, night after night they sleep on their dreams.
If anything, may this terror attack warning only be a jolt to wake us into reality.