Take a bow Sizwe Mabizela, you took the words right out of our mouths. The Rhodes University vice-chancellor spoke yesterday at the opening ceremony of the university’s graduation weekend, and he didn’t mince his words when it comes to our country’s top dogs.

We’ll hand over to Mabizela, as reported here in TimesLive:

The noble qualities and values of personal integrity, honesty, humility, compassion, respect for each other, fairness, forgiveness, empathy, selfless dedication and willingness to put others first – that were so beautifully exemplified by President Nelson Mandela – have given way to venality, a complete lack of integrity, moral decadence, profligacy, rampant corruption, deceit, and duplicity.

He then laid some of the blame at the feet of us, the voters, saying we have elected “people who have no sense of right and wrong, just and unjust, fair and unfair, ethical and unethical”:

We have become a society in which obscene and unbridled opulence exists alongside debilitating poverty and deprivation; a society that relentlessly promotes a culture of untrammelled greed and conspicuous consumption above the public and common good; a culture that judges one’s worth by the amount of personal wealth amassed.

He also implored the graduates to make a difference, using their education for the betterment of both themselves and the society in which we live:

My appeal is that you become an active, engaged and concerned citizen who takes a special interest in, and concern for, those who are living in the social and economic margins of our society. We cannot fail them; we dare not fail them!

Strong words, but words that are refreshing to hear. We have far too many prominent figures blowing smoke up other people’s backsides for the purposes of self-enrichment, so it makes a pleasant change to hear a well-articulated attack on the powers that be.

Happy Friday y’all, go forth and multiply.

[source:timeslive]