EDITORIAL: Dancing around the golden calf

Besides breaking free from the heinous yoke of oppression, apartheid and colonialism, the liberation struggles waged in Africa - and specifically in our region - were spurred on by the hopes of a better life and the restoration of dignity, which largely remain unfulfilled.

The golden calves of corruption and self-enrichment have laid waste to so many grand desires and dreams, as leaders dance around the idols of greed and pampering. Even a cursory look at the former liberation movements that eventually ascended to political power in southern Africa reveals their evolution into parties that have vacuumed resources meant for the benefit of the poor and still disadvantaged. This mockery has spawned both populism and apathy among the restless majority, who look on with hungry eyes as the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.

In some regional nations, the ‘ruling party’ has overtaken the country as more important, and decisions are made not in national interest, but to keep warring intra-party factions from tearing former liberation movements from limb to limb.

It is, of course, true that when elephants fight - even those from the same herd - it the grass that suffers. What cannot continue is how resources, power and money are dished out based on political proximity. We cannot allow individuals to continue to stuff their pockets on the basis that they are connected to those who wield the levers of political power.