EDITORIAL: Walk a day in the shoes of the poor

Before judging someone, like young people who took to the streets on Independence Day to make their unemployment woes known, we must understand their experiences, challenges and thought processes.

Some remarks in the aftermath of these protests - many of them spewed from positions of privilege - have been utterly dismissive and lack both empathy and sensitivity.

In her 1895 poem titled ‘Judge Softly’, Mary T Lathrap urges humankind to pray and not find fault with the man who limps

or stumbles along the road, “unless you have worn the moccasins he wears, or stumbled beneath the same load”.

It must be a business of every elected official to walk a mile in the shoes of their constituents – instead of opening a cage of police brutality on them.

To imply that the youth are simply drunk on a tonic of lawlessness is both stupid and ignorant.

It is often said that leaders must know when to lead, when to follow, when to accompany and when to stay away.

On Independence Day, they ought to have accompanied the youth in their hour of need and walked a mile in their shoes. Instead, they stayed away and ordered an unholy companion in the form of abusive police officers to shut them up with brutal force.