Dear Editor,
The burning tyres tell so many stories. All are unpalatable, all bitter. None is confronted with the sharp deep honesty demanded.
Whenever, and wherever, a tire is burnt in protest, it is first and foremost about the agony and despair of a people; of the fear and hopelessness that comes through wanting and begging, crying out and waiting. And all for nothing. It is usually for a piece of the pie, a place at the table, and a voice recognized for what it truly represents through the smoke and disruption of the fires. Yes, the tyre is the pyre of the collective cry from the pain in the heart.
These momentarily harnessed fire zones illuminate and conceal. They light up deep frustrations and flaring resentments of the have-nots. The resentments are many, the have-nots many more. Neither is fading away or going away. In fact, both retreat underground where anger and fear are rekindled with renewed vigour. None of this is dissipated by smooth words, forced interventions, a crumb here, or blue-ribbon commission there. Together, all of these are many days (years) late, and countless components short. For the burning tyres are the incandescence of countless injustices, immeasurable scorn, and a pitiful bone tossed (or wrested) to mislead the unwary and lull the aroused. The ad hoc, part-time, piecemeal measures buy a phony peace, and only a temporary one. The self-serving dispensers ought to know, and do know, better.
Those who persist in piracy at the expense of the struggling, suffering masses, who marshal callous enforcers to uphold order, know that anarchy seeps forward slowly. Slowly but relentlessly. Yesterday, it was Linden; today, it is Agricola; tomorrow….well, that could be anytime and anywhere. Again, the light of the burning tyres reveal the unwanted truth: It is a truth that is muted, even denied. It is that this society is perched perilously on a volcano suffused with the toxicities of the racial and the political. Let there be no mistake about this incontestable fact: the volcano that simmers restlessly-mainly quietly-is mostly political, mostly racial. It needs no introduction, has its own sordid history. It continues to simmer and heave….
Some of the escaped energy of its pent-up wrath has been experienced on a few occasions now –it has been seen and felt. No one at the helm talks about this at all; those who do are not honest about it. But then they are not usually honest about anything. Anything. In fact, they are preoccupied trying to find new ways to tell the same tired stories. All they end up being is utterly predictable; such is the intelligence and complacency of this sorry bunch who call themselves leaders from every side. Look closely, and it could be seen that the last fifty years presented this nation with men who believed themselves bright and untouchable; they played dangerous games. Recently, men lacking stature and vision (or purpose other than self-preservation) continue to labour at the same sanguinary games. Meanwhile the emotional embers smolder and spark far from Agricola.
And now this brings to what these same burning fires conceal. They conceal the ugliness of barbaric assaults-mainly ethnic-that stain and complicate the struggle for justice and equity; they conceal individual and orchestrated antagonisms; and they conceal darker secrets as to source and origin, for this is not the work or mindset of extremists. Clearly, protest run amok and leaderless has its dark, dirty side; its opening for studied exploitation and political opportunism, if not chicanery.
In closing, I say that Agricola is not about a provocative phrase, or many willfully blind men. Rather, it is about what gnaws ceaselessly at the national soul.
Yours faithfully,
ghklall
