VN May 2021

Vetnuus | Mei 2021 4 Blowing. Expel air through pursed lips. Or wind creating an air current. People who bring to our attention a wrongdoing are referred to as whistle blowers. People who stand up to what is important to them, who will not stand back and accept such wrongdoing. Often hated for their actions, asked why they could not just let it be, leave it alone. Made out as people who cannot be trusted as they spy on you and will report even the smallest misstep to management. Then there are the other blowers. Those who blow their own trumpet or horn. Who tell everyone how important they are, what they did and how important their contributions are. Often without recognition to those who made it possible for them to do what they did, those who worked behind the scenes and actually did all the work to give the horn blower his moment of fame. Horn blowers often are well-liked and elected to positions where they can do more horn blowing while riding on the backs of others. In Afrikaans we have an expression “maar die wind waai wes”. Not easy to translate, this. We use it when someone makes a promise, or a commitment to change that is unrealistic and probably not achievable. Like someone stating that “Soon COIVD-19 will be behind us and everything will be back to normal.”We would say “Jy kan so dink, ja, maar die wind waai wes.”Thus – not a chance, bro. Why do we belittle whistle blowers when we should actually commend them, encourage them, support them? Do we all have a guilty conscience and are we all worried that someone will find the skeleton in our closet, and therefore we rather take down the honest guys? Why do we praise horn blowers, when we should be taking them down and showing the world who they really are, and who really does the work? Or do we support them to so make sure that we do not have to put our hands up and volunteer for that same position? In the end we do ourselves harm. We would be better people if we support the whistle blowers or, better still, if we took the time to blow that whistle ourselves. Better too if we volunteered our time to do the job, as the horn blower just fills the position without doing much good, Maar die wind waai wes…. v Regards, From the Editor Reflections from a DamWall Paul van Dam