“Why don’t you blog about Zuma?” my sister asked.

Here is why.

On Sunday night I watched Carte Blanche‘s viewer poll suggesting 90% of the viewers thought the latest cabinet reshuffle was the last straw.

Unfortunately, I doubt it was. I will lend my support to #BlackMonday and April 7 stay-aways just in case, but I don’t believe anything is about to change.

If you don’t believe me, read Alan Paton’s short story “The Waste Land”. The final paragraph contains this African idiom: “People arise, the world is dead.” South Africans, in my opinion, still don’t understand this – the world is dead. South Africans still think someone will show up to save us and until we realise that no one is coming, nothing will change.

Then go ahead and read “A Grain of Wheat“ by  Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o.  South Africans have forgotten — how fickle our memories have proven to be — what true resistance is.  Go read how people threw themselves in front of trains in protest to an unjust white government.

The poorest classes burn tires in protest, but the rest of us listen to the radio and curse at another silly disruption to traffic. Wearing a black T-shirt is not quite the same as throwing yourself in front of a train. The truth is that I can’t see anyone willing to die for this country anymore … I oppose all violence, so please don’t think I’m inciting it here. I just fail to see how chit-chat, T-shirts and hashtags will change anything in a land where we are all far too comfortable, too apathetic to actually do anything.

If you know your history, please be my guest, and tell me of another country where the supporters of the ruling party — bearing still and forever the tag of the saviour — turned on its leaders and forced change.

If you can show me that, I might be more optimistic.