Poor are like balls in a game

IT’S exciting to watch rugby, football, tennis or golf. Common to them is the use of balls.

When the game kicks off, the ball looks colourful and beautiful to the eye.

Then it is either kicked or hit in an attempt to win the game.

However, at the end of the game, the ball is worn out and seldom reused or considered for the next spectacle.

Even in football, which is affectionately known as “the beautiful game”, the ball is never glorified after the match is won; the trophy is.

Similar to balls are the poor. The difference is that balls are inanimate while the poor are human and can see, hear and react.

Many unscrupulous organisations solicit large amounts of donations because they claim to be “for a good cause”, meaning uplifting the poor.

South Africa is the most unequal society, so poor people are in the majority. And politicians are not asleep, they use the poor to garner votes – promise to do this and that for the poor. At the end of electioneering, like balls, the poor are relegated to nonentities.

Perhaps that’s the reason politics is notoriously known as a dirty game.

Didn’t we see looters soaring to their cosy little corners, hear damning commissions of inquiry, feel the hunger pangs and witness racial practices?

Time to react.