Things Fall Apart

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity

These lines from William Butler Yeats`s poem, The Second Coming, came vividly to mind in the past few days of municipal workers`s strike which left our cities and towns in a mess. I had first hand experiences of a legitimate strike elevated to anarchy in the capital city of our province Polokwane where property was destroyed and the innocent assaulted.

In my town of  Tzaneen strikers even went to the landfill site to import waste to trash our streets with.

As this anarchy played itself out government, president Jacob Zuma in particular, was conspicous in its silence. Strikers could march, vandalise, assault and destroy with the knowledge that little if not nothing could be done to them. Afterall they are the ones who delivered Zuma in Limpopo back in 2007.

It is a tragedy that workers who enjoy the benefits of a rolls royce labour legislation can resort to anarchy to put the frustrations across to the employer.

It now remains to be seen what the future holds for us as the contradictions within the Zuma-alliance get really tested.