MZANSI is a country that punches above its weight - especially when it comes to corruption and incompetence.
A few months ago we were in the global spotlight because we were the source of leaked spy cables that had a lot of interesting things to say about big global players like America, Russia, Iran and Israel.
It’s the sort of information that could have come from any country’s spy service, but ours was the only one that couldn’t keep its secrets secret.
Now we’re in the news again, this time for our corrupt tendencies.
I’m of course talking about the big Fifa scandal that has seen the arrest of a few of the soccer body’s top officials, as well as the resignation of the king of world soccer, Sepp Blatter.
Fifa has been corrupt for decades, and when Blatter and his servants decided to give South Africa the World Cup, they must have thought they’d met another group of people as corrupt and crooked as they are.
What they did not know – what they could not have known – was that Mzansi would prove to be their downfall.
Not for the right reasons, of course. The people who went after Fifa were American FBI agents, not the Hawks. But the Americans wouldn’t have been able to do what they did if it wasn’t for how corrupt and stupid we are.
No, the fall of Blatter was made possible because then-Safa president, Molefi Oliphant, went and wrote a letter that seems to pretty much be an instruction to pay a bribe.
That letter is out there on the internet. So is one from then-Local Organising Committee boss, Jordaan, to Valcke, which reportedly also implicates him and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma in the bribery mess.
Make no mistake, this is bad. We’ve become used to government corruption, to lying and cheating, incompetence and unaccountability.
So it’s easy to think that this is just another one of those things people will eventually have to forget about because nobody is going to act against the guilty parties.
Just look at some other recent scandals.
How long must we wait for the Marikana Report?
And does anyone think anything will be done against those responsible for the deaths of dozens of miners? Of course not!
Don’t even get me started on Nkandla. I want to laugh each time I think of that comedy show that was the police minister’s media briefing, but I find myself crying and reaching for the whisky instead.
Mbaks must have taken some notes during that performance because he put on a few terrible shows of his own after the Fifa news first leaked. We’re good at tough talk and self-righteousness, but with every new revelation it’s all exposed as the empty bullsh*t it really is.
YES, I’m angry! And if you can look at all of this, at Marikana, at Nkandla, at our involvement in an international bribery scandal that may just be the worst body blows we’ve ever had to take as a country . . . if you can look at all this and not be furious, then I’m afraid there’s something very wrong with you.
You know what else pisses me off? When this stuff gets exposed and everyone asks what the courts can do, or what the Public Protector can do, or this or that organisation. Here’s a crazy idea: Why don’t YOU do something about it? Of course the courts aren’t going to do anything, the judges are appointed by the people doing the corruption!
Why the hell do we elect people who have shown again and again that they can’t be trusted, and then after we’ve done that we moan and we ask for someone to save us?
Nobody can save us except ourselves, but it seems we’d rather sit back and be used and abused.
What do you think?
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Until next week, salani kahle!
This article first appeared in the Sunday Sun
