Seeing Red

Watching the news is downright depressing these days - even more so than usual.

For those who don't know, we have strikers going ballistic again.

Oh brother!

The sight on the newscasts, of thousands of red shirted, arm- and banner-waving bodies, hopping from one leg to the other, and singing protest songs, has become trying.

These strikers are government employees - which is infuriating because so very many people in this country would give anything just to get a job.

And huge numbers can't.

Part of the reason for that is that business is wary of going the labour intensive route for exactly this reason -

No sooner do people here get a job, than they strike for more.

And business just cannot afford that right now, anywhere in the world.

But among the strikers are teachers and nurses who are shockingly badly paid.

So they have had quite a lot of sympathy from the public.

For a while -

Until stories began to surface of the abandonment by medical staff of prem babies, the very ill and the helpless in the hospitals. Many of these cases have been moved to private hospitals which have opened their doors to them.

Its good to know that there are so many decent human beings who are willing to step up and work even harder in this awful situation.

I heard that striking staff had even barged into an operating theatre while an op was in progess, They manhandled the doctors and nurses who were working on an already anaesthetised patient!

Thats a shocker!

Then there are the teachers - abandoning their pupils just before exam time - specially the Matric pupils.

And threatening and attacking teachers who have chosen not to strike.

Mercifully here in the Western Cape, where the DA, Helen Zille and sanity rule, things are pretty much running as normal, with a few managable exceptions.

The rest of the country is a mess right now.

And things are being stirred up mightily by some of our choice horrors like Vavi and Malema - licking their lips like ghouls at the prospect of milking this situation for their own political dreams.

Ah well!

We all knew in our sensible selves, that the beautiful experience of togetherness during the WC was an illusion: that there are just too many power hungry politicians around here who thrive on unrest and aggression for it to last.

But hey! we have endured much in this country, we have seen unusually good things happen too.

I haven't given up hope

After all, the UK went through this exact thing - it took a Maggie Thatcher to sort the trade unions out there -

So it can be done - but oh people! we sure need a lot of prayer . . .