READER LETTER | Children are dying while the nation is quiet

It’s commonplace for children to die on account of consuming unwholesome foodstuff sold by an unvetted migrant retailer, says writer.
It’s commonplace for children to die on account of consuming unwholesome foodstuff sold by an unvetted migrant retailer, says writer.
Image: 123RF/Przemyslaw Koch

Former president Nelson Mandela once said: “The character of a society is revealed in how it treats its children.”

These words are an unvarnished truth.

In SA, there’s a conspiracy of silence in the way children die. If they don’t die during initiation, they die in a scholar transport and a place of drinking liquor or at the hands of those who shed blood as a ritual to gain prosperity by craftiness.

Lest we forget the scale of kidnapping and abductions has reached alarming proportions like our porous borders. Even so, some civil society organisations have made it their principal business to defend migrants who entered the country illegally and perpetuate a flood of squatter camps in communities.

They are aiding and abetting the influx which is largely actuated by the cheap labour market, unregulated local trade and free access to public healthcare. We’ve even grown accustomed to undocumented immigrants living among us and the proliferation of imported crops and herbs without a permit.

It’s commonplace for children to die on account of consuming unwholesome foodstuff sold by an unvetted migrant retailer. Yet, the venal police officials still choose to sell out our quality of life for a merecool drink”. The political leadership is well aware of these risks, but it turns a blind eye to a lapse in law enforcement.

Is the “promise of a better life for all” abandoned? The country has hitherto veered onto a neoliberal path to contradict the strategic mission of the national democratic revolution.

We’re living in an unequal society at the mercy of the self-centred liberals and their confederates who entrench the status quo by defending white privileges. They’re running to the courts to challenge the work of parliament, turning the government of national unity into the greatest betrayal in history.

Morgan Phaahla, Ekurhuleni


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