Bok Fridays? We all need ‘Save Us Saturdays’: It’s time that we march for our lives
|Published
COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT: Palestinian civilians suffering
I feel I need to clarify what I said last week.
From some of the comments on my argument, it’s clear that some people misunderstood what I was trying to say about the Israel-Hamas conflict. I was not saying that South Africans shouldn’t protest locally.
I was also not trying to be diplomatic by sitting on the fence with my opinion.
Let me start here and state categorically that I believe Israel is being far too heavy-handed in how it is dealing with Hamas and that innocent Palestinians are suffering as a result.
In the same breath, I was pointing out that neither side is engaging each other with the majority support of the electorate.
And this is an important point, because it demonstrates how this war may in fact not be the will of either the Israeli or the Palestinian people.
At the same time, I am not ignoring the fact that even in “peacetime,” the lives of the Palestinian population in Gaza are made a living hell by the inhumane occupation.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let me address the local protest issue.
I’ve got nothing against us marching through our streets for an international cause close to our hearts.
I just think it would be more effective if we sort ourselves out first.
It is my belief that if we show the same kind of resilience with consistent mass protests against crime, we may be able to get our government’s attention.
I don’t mean we should do it as a once-off, or even every now and again.
I mean we should turn out in the same numbers as we did for the anti-Israel protest, but on an ongoing basis.
Imagine if hundreds of thousands of angry and passionate people marched on Parliament every single Saturday morning for months.
Imagine if that was the picture in every major city around the country every week.
There was, of course, another recent occasion when we put our unity on display in our numbers – the Rugby World Cup final and the subsequent Springbok victory parades.
As I mentioned previously, I was in Canal Walk for the final game and people were crammed in there, shoulder-to-shoulder, much like every other viewing location around the country.
On parade day, Capetonians were lining the highways, just for a quick glimpse of their heroes.
One East London fan even sadly lost her life after becoming a bit too passionate in her attempts to get close to the players on their bus.
It’s this mass mobilisation that I’m suggesting we harness to highlight our feelings about the rising crime rate countrywide.
How do we get the same numbers to put the same energy that they put into seeing the Bokke, or showing support for the Palestinians, into drawing attention to crime?
It is after all something that affects all of our lives on a daily basis.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the level of supportive pride we showed toward the Bokke.
I love the fact that the team was able to unify us as a country again, even if it was just momentary.
I was just wondering how we are able to justify to ourselves that we turned up en masse to show our support for something far less important than the daily threats to our lives and the ones we love.
Government paid such close attention to that moment, and our reaction to it, that the president felt a public holiday was in order.
Again, I am not complaining, just observing that when enough of us draw attention to our collective concerns for long enough, eventually they will notice and they will be forced to act.