Always just before elections, new shanty towns arise in South Africa. Card boxes after card boxes alongside the streets show supposedly good hearted people who want to change the plight of the poor but who bring empty promises like equal opportunities for all. But one has to ask oneself if there are really equal opportunities in a country where the First, Second, Third and Fourth World exist next to each other, often just a few hundred meters apart and in which inequalities are so painfully visible.
We have to ask ourselves if the parties we should vote for really care about the inequalities in South Africa or if they do not all profit from them? Do politicians not all just want to get a seat in parliament or better even, in the cabinet, because these are high paid positions? Do they not only long for the money these positions will bring and the power they would have over millions of people?
We have to use this time of elections to speak the truth and show the lies written on the new shanty towns that line every street in South Africa. We have to question why the parties waste so much money on meaningless, sometimes ridiculous and often bluntly deceitful messages. Why don’t they use this money to provide services to those who need them? Maybe because they don’t really care?
The golden rule of the world in which we live is that those who have the gold rule. The rich and the politicians are not only friends but often the same people.
We need to make it clear that without the poor, the rich wouldn’t be rich. But without the rich, the poor wouldn’t be poor.
Politicians only care to be voted into power to get money and not because they care about the people they represent in a system that doesn’t deserve to carry the name democracy. Because making a cross on a ballot every five years does not mean that the people have the power or that they can recall politicians who do not live up to their promises.
True power and true democracy lies in the communities and movements that fight for a better world for all. Let us not vote for lying politicians and a system that reinforces inequalities. Let us join this movement for real democracy and for a world in which everyone will be equal.
