Not long-ago to procure cement to build a house, a ‘contact’ was necessary. To get a phone connection an uncle in the right place.
We stood in long queues for milk & became hoarders of sugar & kerosene because who knew when it was next available.
Each one of us in our little own way was reduced to cynical criminality which was blended into & normalized in our way of life.
To throw a ‘runner’ on someone else’s electric connection, ‘adjust’ our electricity meter, get the telephone linesman to ‘accommodate’ STD calls
on our neighbor’s bill, to extend our balconies or add a room with an ‘arrangement’ with the municipality, didn’t prick our conscience in the least.
Our petty thieving was overlooked & we returned the favor, believing that this is what the powerful are entitled to.
Over generations the price was paid & how!
To see & yet avert our eyes to loot, to allow crime to go unpunished, the powerful escape incarceration, destroys the value system of a society and breaks its spinal column.
The natural progression then from quiet, fatigued acceptance of the ordinary citizen is anger, defiance, insecurity making him ungovernable & his belief that there is little that can stop him from doing the same….
