The Opposition Needs to Smell Its Own Armpits

Jabu Kumalo

From the outset, and with all the principles of humility, let me profusely apologise for my ignorance. I simply cannot decipher what in the hell citizens are talking about when they have conversations about opposition political parties.

Maybe I have been living on a different planet since the advent of democracy. I honestly do not know. So, I ask you to forgive me in advance.

What exactly are people talking about when they speak of opposition political parties? Is there really such a creature in our midst?

If there were really an opposition party, just one and not the hundreds that we see and hear about in South Africa, why is the state of affairs regressing instead of us seeing progress in the lives of African people?

Now that the local government elections are upon us, many creepy-crawly opposition parties and individual politicians are creeping out of the woodwork to convince us why we should vote for them.

I mean, with all the mistakes and corruption taking place in our beautiful land, it should have been a walk in the park to unseat the dominant governing political party, the African National Congress, many years ago.

All that these so-called opposition parties are good at is using big English (nay, bombastic words, to use the township lingo) that citizens, even their own members, do not understand, to attack the governing party.

It is not good enough to mouth profanities directed at what you call amasela eANC (ANC thieves) when there is nothing tangible that you are doing as a party.

The relevance of these parties is determined by how they react and respond to what the ANC does or does not do.

The opposition waits for the ANC to launch its own manifesto before launching theirs in response.

Where in the hell are these political parties when children have to play in parks littered with raw sewage?

Where are they when residents have to inconvenience everybody by closing the streets while fighting for the basic right to have water and electricity?

Some communities go for days, weeks, months and even years, in some instances, without these basic human rights and necessities.

And the opposition is nowhere to be seen.

For decades, these opposition parties have stood by while senior citizens have struggled with their pensions.

Why should the oldies have to stand in long, winding queues for hours in biting, chilly weather to prove that they deserve to receive their monthly pensions?

Any opposition party or politician with even the tiniest of a conscience would be disgusted to see such cruelty being visited upon these senior citizens at the sunset of their lives.

Recently, in a conversation with an octogenarian, he said in a chilling voice: “Young people think they will never be old one day. That is why they do not care. It is coming for them.”

Where are the opposition parties when some matriculants struggle to write exams because they do not have identity documents? Is it not their business to be concerned and help these children?

Where are the opposition parties when some citizens who were born and bred in South Africa struggle to acquire a simple document like an ID? There are citizens in their 40s who have never had an ID in their lives!

Instead of running to the opposition parties for help, these poor people see the media as their last option and saviour. If the media can assist in solving their ID plight, why cannot opposition politicians do anything about it?

The reason is simple. They will not get any mileage from helping citizens where there are no media cameras and publicity. They opt instead to insult the “heartless ANC government” rather than help their fellow citizens.

Where are they when raw sewage is directed by municipalities to spill into streams and rivers across our land?

They simply do not care. It is too much work for them to do something about it.

They find pleasure, or perhaps gratification, in insulting the governing party about pit toilets in schools. They never care to lift a finger and use their millions of rands to help, yet do not mind splashing more than R50 million on their conferences. Talk about double standards.

That money can wipe out all the pit toilet scandals in a whiff and the kids would experience the sensation of dignified lives.

Think about the double standards that are applied in the so-called World Class African City, Joburg City. The bylaws of this city apply differently to its citizenry, depending on where they stay.

Residents who stay in the townships that fall under this biggest metro in the country are engaged in wars against each other over natural things like rain. Imagine adults fighting over rain. One insensitive neighbour decides to erect a wall; their opposite neighbour’s yard gets flooded by water, which in turn eventually floods their whole house. Then the battle starts.

This decades-old matter should have been taken up by the opposition, with a way found to resolve it long ago. In the suburbs, there are no such fights among neighbours. A neighbour cannot just wake up and decide to erect a wall that would frustratingly inconvenience others.

Again, no neighbour in the suburbs has a right to deprive others of something as natural as the sun by building a double- or triple-storey structure that would prevent sunrays from lighting their neighbour’s house. This has become a phenomenon in the townships. The next-door neighbour has to keep the lights on the whole day because of this. Township yards were not created to have double- or triple-storey structures.

If you want such luxury, join your peers in the suburbs, where there is room for this.

I have never heard any opposition party raising concerns about these painful abnormalities.

There are many undertakings that the opposition can exploit if they really cared about the people of this country. But, just like the governing party that they are insulting every day, they are doing nothing about them.

They can take up simple grievances like untarred streets with no pavements, no street lights or street lights that are on the whole day but go off at night, crime, and run with them.

You never hear the voice of the opposition when kids die from eating toxic snacks or other foods.

So, where is the opposition? Why is it not capitalising on all the own goals that the ANC is scoring against itself all the time?

The truth is, the biggest and strongest opposition to the African National Congress is itself. The ANC is devouring itself from the inside, but it seems to be too humongous and scary to be destroyed by the opposition.

Being content with pointing the finger and insulting the ANC will not bring the still much-awaited freedom, a liberation that is still a rumour to the millions of African people.

As the Africans say, it is time the opposition smelled its own armpits. It is time for them to take a mirror and look at their own ugliness, rather than behave like the monkeys who do not see their ugly foreheads.

Some may believe that some of the things written here are not politics. They are as much politics as the air that we breathe every second.

Any political party that wants to stay relevant in the minds of the people must have the time, energy and care to concern itself with the everyday nitty-gritty of their communities.