The power trip is a deep-seated South African tradition, and even just the illusion of power will be wielded with all its might.
The power trip is a deep-seated South African tradition, with a history that runs deep through our cultural firmament. It runs counter to our national aspiration of democracy and equal rights. But hell, if you’re the one with the power, who cares. It doesn’t even have to be a lot of power.
It doesn’t even have to be a lot of power. It can just be the illusion of power, but boy, we love to wield it! Power is just so intoxicating, it’s almost impossible not to abuse it. Ask the nightclub bouncers who make you drive back home for a better shirt; the car guards who insist that you park 20 metres closer to the venue; the security guards who refuse to let you out of a complex because you don’t have “the code” from the person you’ve visited.
That amount of power must be overwhelming. I was unable to manage a photo-shoot budget with anything approaching austerity. God, I couldn’t even keep my nose out of the petty-cash cupboard, so my judging of our deeply imperfect officials and elected representatives must be tempered. Of course I have, surely? Right? And those lapses along the way were just that, minor slips. Almost charming little mess-ups. Perhaps, or perhaps I’m just rationalising. Perhaps the slips are always charming mischief in our interior monologue, as we write our real-time autobiographies in our minds.
Even the unanimous worst among our ethically challenged compatriots are the heroes of their own lives. Perhaps the key to finding our lost moral compasses is to regather an appreciation for our own fallibility, our imperfections.
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