This article tells, as best words can, of the lack of basic comfort that half our fellow citizens live with. In this winter, these people don’t decide how much less of either food or fuel they purchase, they need to choose which one to do without.
The glaring difference between the Luxembourg-style lifestyles of political leaders and half the country’s citizens makes me wonder how long the voters they rely on can be appeased with electioneering t-shirts and food parcels.
Half the country’s citizens do without a modicum of comfort. Where is another Thomas Sankara when we need one? If leaders are in power because of popular support, surely the presence of guards, escort convoys, and other protections tell another story.
I think it is fear. Fear of the power of the millions of poor. Some choose to live in suburban fortresses, paid for with taxpayer money. Others want to build walls, because heaven forbid! the poor might be more than an uncomfortable reminder on the way to and from the airport in one of our capital cities.
Thomas Sankara sold the Benzes and bought Renault 5s for government ministers. How much does the back seat of a BMW today contribute to better execute ministerial decisions than, say, a driver’s seat in a new Suzuki S-Presso 1.0 GL? Not much, I’d venture.
When leaders live in fear of the people that elected them, we have a problem. Political success has come to mean a life of excess and waste. There is hardly a whiff of living up to a calling or ideal.
And if nothing changes - soon - there is trouble coming. Instead of t-shirts and food parcels to conjure up votes, we need actions to ensure that not a single citizen would ever be in need of a food parcel or a cheap t-shirt ever again.