Boy, we are in a pickle these days, aren't we?

Caught between rising crime and a seemingly growing number of criminal cops; a thriving guns-for-drugs trade and police who have no boats; a global financial crisis and cab drivers who abduct and rape women.

How the heck did we ever get here and how in God's name are we going to get out? Who is going to be our Barack Obama - the person who we believe is going to save us from all this madness?

I mean, there are more reports of bad cops in the news these days than criminals. This latest report about the alleged rape and abduction of a 14-year-old schoolgirl makes me sick to the stomach.

And the recent raping and killing of that quiet young pharmacist who used to be employed at MegaMart makes me cringe. But what really makes me mad is the absence of anger that I feel around me.

Why are we not marching on the streets protesting against what is going on? We block the roads when we get caught stealing light and when the National Water Commission can't get water to our taps and when the roads are too dusty or when some common thug gets arrested, but people are getting slaughtered all around us, kids are being raped and killed, and an uncomfortable number of people who are supposed to be 'serving and protecting' us are spending more time doing us harm and we are not doing anything. Why?

Brainwashed

It would seem to me that if there was ever a time for major protest, like those demonstrations over high gas prices several years ago that locked the country down for days, now would be the time.

It's bad enough that the criminals are taking aim at us, but now they're targeting our children, our very future, so why can't we stand up and say 'No. No More!'

Is it that we are too embarrassed having been brainwashed by the criminals about not being informers or ashamed that we have been poor parents to our children, or just poor citizens overall?

Moving back

I can't say it enough times that we really need to start demanding more of ourselves and of the people who we have entrusted to lead us. We need to start moving back to the days when respect was earned and not demanded from behind the barrel of a gun.

This week I was somewhere having lunch when a young man came in to get food and was using the most foul language ever, despite the room being filled with people all older than he is and who were enjoying the environs and their food before he entered. The thing is, nobody said anything to him. There was a time when that would not have been the case.

And these are the things we need to start doing again. The country has to be taken back from the lawless and the ignorant and the fools. There are still enough of us out there who are hardworking, decent and law-abiding to make it happen. Smaller nations across the region are grappling with similar problems but they are all doing something about it. Isn't it time we started doing the same?

Or would we rather wait until it gets much worse before we start to believe that the time is right?

If we wait until then it's our funeral and by then no one can save us.

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