Hands off the poor!
| Friday January 31, 2014 16:52
Hands off
the poor!
I
n this edition, we publish with a heavy sense of trepidation a story about how Jwaneng Town Council is spearheading efforts to turn Botswana into a police state by arming law enforcement officers of local authorities with pepper spray, batons and handcuffs.
Perhaps batons and handcuffs could pass for standard fare, even considered minimal, for law enforcement officers anywhere, but pepper spray? Yet no one - according to the minds of the men and women who make up the municipality of Jwaneng - should be troubled by this because these tools are no more than basic security equipment! Under the fascist order envisioned for Botswana by Jwaneng, local authorities aim to make a literal interpretation of a new Local Government Act whose centrepiece seems to be harassment of the downtrodden.
To carry out its 'duties,' as the councillors of Jwaneng describe harassment of the down and out, emphasis is placed on search and seizure, confiscating property and detaining persons. It is not enough that the targeted 'persons' are already poor and browbeaten; they will be made more desolate and abject because they must become the ultimate wretched of the earth. 'Persons,' of course, refers mainly to street vendors who are currently being treated as vermin by authorities in the cities of Gaborone and Francistown.
And if anyone should think the sorrowful souls deserved a respite, they are manifestly wrong because local authorities countrywide intend to pepper-spray them out of their precarious perches on the street, sequestrate all their worldly possessions, and then detain the damnable 'persons' for emphasis.
It is a mean attitude couched in legal jargon to justify what is to be a nationwide persecution of the poor whose otherwise admirable effort to scape a living by honest means is viewed with disapproval by a seemingly mighty middle-class whose materialistic values make them a parasitic lot that sucks the blood of the povo.
But the truth is that all is not what it seems, even for this greedy lot. With household debt outstripping borrowing by commerce and industry, it is they who are teetering on a precipice from which only principled state intervention can rescue them. For if things were ever done properly in this miserable country, it would have been recognised that banks are also to blame for this state of affairs of the greedy lot that lapped up cheap credit when the banks were flush with too much cash.
However, because they are incapable of arriving at this proper conclusion from which to launch a legitimate appeal for a rescue, they become small-minded and turn on the dirt-poor with a misdirected vengeance - the little council men and council women banding together with the little council officers to wreak revenge on the wrong people. Completely at sea in this false solidarity with the self-absorbed and potbellied officers of the municipalities, the councillors lose track of what they were elected to do, and that is to make life possible for ordinary citizens, for goodness sake! It is a terrible psychosis that Botswana's petit bourgeoisie - itself a truly sorrowful lot - is caught up in, but this is no excuse to turn on the poor.
Today's thought
'There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.'
- Mahatma Gandhi
Perhaps batons and handcuffs could pass for standard fare, even considered minimal, for law enforcement officers anywhere, but pepper spray? Yet no one - according to the minds of the men and women who make up the municipality of Jwaneng - should be troubled by this because these tools are no more than basic security equipment! Under the fascist order envisioned for Botswana by Jwaneng, local authorities aim to make a literal interpretation of a new Local Government Act whose centrepiece seems to be harassment of the downtrodden. To carry out its 'duties,' as the councillors of Jwaneng describe harassment of the down and out, emphasis is placed on search and seizure, confiscating property and detaining persons. It is not enough that the targeted 'persons' are already poor and browbeaten; they will be made more desolate and abject because they must become the ultimate wretched of the earth. 'Persons,' of course, refers mainly to street vendors who are currently being treated as vermin by authorities in the cities of Gaborone and Francistown.
And if anyone should think the sorrowful souls deserved a respite, they are manifestly wrong because local authorities countrywide intend to pepper-spray them out of their precarious perches on the street, sequestrate all their worldly possessions, and then detain the damnable 'persons' for emphasis. It is a mean attitude couched in legal jargon to justify what is to be a nationwide persecution of the poor whose otherwise admirable effort to scape a living by honest means is viewed with disapproval by a seemingly mighty middle-class whose materialistic values make them a parasitic lot that sucks the blood of the povo. But the truth is that all is not what it seems, even for this greedy lot. With household debt outstripping borrowing by commerce and industry, it is they who are teetering on a precipice from which only principled state intervention can rescue them. For if things were ever done properly in this miserable country, it would have been recognised that banks are also to blame for this state of affairs of the greedy lot that lapped up cheap credit when the banks were flush with too much cash.However, because they are incapable of arriving at this proper conclusion from which to launch a legitimate appeal for a rescue, they become small-minded and turn on the dirt-poor with a misdirected vengeance - the little council men and council women banding together with the little council officers to wreak revenge on the wrong people.
Completely at sea in this false solidarity with the self-absorbed and potbellied officers of the municipalities, the councillors lose track of what they were elected to do, and that is to make life possible for ordinary citizens, for goodness sake! It is a terrible psychosis that Botswana's petit bourgeoisie - itself a truly sorrowful lot - is caught up in, but this is no excuse to turn on the poor.
Today's thought
'There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.'
- Mahatma Gandhi