These boorish fat cats need to be cut down to size

22 June 2017 - 07:19 By The Times Editorial
subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now
President Jacob Zuma. File photo.
President Jacob Zuma. File photo.
Image: ELMOND JIYANE/GCIS

One of the more notable TV ads of the last decade featured a business-class passenger throwing his weight around at an airport counter, angrily demanding of the check-in clerk: "Do you know who I am?"

After a calming sip of the tea being advertised, the clerk took to the public address system, announcing: "There's a gentleman here who doesn't know who he is. If you can assist, please report to the information desk."

The reason the ad is so memorable nine years later is because it touched a nerve that was already exposed by the emergence of a mindset that a certain group of people - politicians, usually - were more equal than others.

The phenomenon it highlighted back in 2008 has become more pronounced, thanks to the arrival of President Jacob Zuma in the Union Buildings the following year and his gradual transfer of power to an unelected family and a craven clique.

The ways the politically connected and powerful ride roughshod over the rest of us are many and various, as the #GuptaEmails have made clear.

But the Orwellian satire made real - of a ruling class to whom different rules apply - visits everyone else in the form of "blue-light bullies", whose luxurious German vehicles aggressively force their way through traffic jams, leaving a trail of scorn and disdain in their wake.

Security is one thing, but boorish queue-jumping by fat cats with an over-developed sense of entitlement is one of the many troubling faces of untrammelled political power.

Like the ad's check-in clerk whose public riposte took the wind out of her customer's bombast, citizens need to cut politicians down to size. Perhaps at the ballot box.

subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now