Gavin Fish, Noordhoek
Mcebisi Jonas’s acknowledgement that he was offered the Finance Minister’s job by the Guptas is the lancing of a festering boil. I am angered by the revelation and will await the outcome with vested interest.
As a high school principal, I and my staff teach. It is our core business, but not our core purpose. Our purpose is to educate, to inspire our youth to discover their potential, so that they may serve society.
We do that underpinned by core values that we strive to maintain. They are: respect; responsibility; service; and truth.
We do so in our microcosm of society, 1 000 pupils at a time, a drop in our nation’s ocean.
How tragic then, that the values we aspire towards are being undermined by the very leaders that we should hold up as being inspirational.
Little wonder that Jonathan Jansen recently wrote of the disillusionment, fears and apprehensions of many school pupils. Respect your elders, rings hollow when many of our “elders” command no respect.
Why are values referred to as being old-fashioned? Are they somehow no longer relevant, or just absent? We have a national crisis of integrity.
The spinning of truth is at an all-time high.
Too many of those entrusted with the democratic revolution’s mandate to address inequality are enriching themselves.
I can only trust that those politicians who continue to work so tirelessly for the better society we all want will be emboldened by Jonas’s stance and draw their own line in the sand.
