When I attended a leadership course with Outward Bound in December 1992, one of the senior instructors at the school in Oloitokitok spoke to us about the psychological impact of the real hardships we were about to face.

You are now leaving your comfort zone.

There are no telephones where we are going. Your parents will not be able to get in touch with you, and you will not be able to get in touch with them.

But you will, as patrols, be reliant on one another for support and encouragement.

And there will be points where you will get angry with one another, and we as wardens will be there to help you to resolve your conflicts.

DO NOT REACH PANGA POINT.

Cc @Jackie_Arkle did you also get the same speech?

Panga point. What a profound phrase.

What frustrates many of us to the point where we can pick up a panga and lash out?

One simple answer.

A LACK OF FAITH IN OUR SYSTEMS OF OBTAINING JUSTICE.

Someone who is aggrieved can go to the police for help. But will that help be forthcoming? Will that help be timeous? Will that help be appropriate? Will that help be availed without INDUCEMENT?

Many of us are simply NOT IN OUR COMFORT ZONES. Many of us are sadly at the end of our tether.

On the flipside, some of us are able to exploit the weaknesses in our systems to escape justice.

Nothing gets done, or when it does get done, it would mean nothing.

Do you blame the chap who appeared in videos across social media for grabbing a panga and confronting his employer?

Let us not even begin to discuss the other side of the story, and what happened to the man later on.

What drove him to pick up that machete?

Power imbalances are a source of real conflict in our society. Indulge me.

I was involved in a hit and run the other day. I have reported the matter. I have attended the police station TWICE. I have been instructed to attend again today.

What are the realistic chances of the culprit who hit my car being brought to justice and brought to account and made to pay?

Will the amount of time and resources I expend in pursuing someone for this be worth the small damage he has caused?

None, and no.

And this is why many of us just walk away and forget about it. It is simply NOT worth the time, effort, and aggravation pursuing such things.

And so the guy will get away with it, and do it to someone else. Because our systems are rotten. Our systems allow shit to happen.

In this case, the guy who hit my car has more power than I do. I am powerless to do anything about it. Because the system is not helping me. It is hindering my life.

And so many of us reach panga point, be it using physical pangas, or resorting to putting their oppressors on blast using social media.

Both are damaging to varying extents, but both methods stem from a growing lack of confidence in the systems available to us.

When people in authority make themselves available online and promise to look into cases of delays or impossibilities in obtaining assistance, my take is that it is mostly whitewashing and window dressing.

And so we let go of such things that aggrieve us. We become more suspicious and brutal with each other so that bad things don't happen to us again. And we look for "outside the system" methods to resolve the problems that we face.

God help us all.

Hakuna confidence.

The people who rise to the top are often influential enough (through money, contacts, or tribal/community connections) to tip the balance of power to favour them.

And the rest of us become meek. We keep our heads down. We mind our own business. We become insular and stick within our communities. We stop making friends. We do business only with people we know, for fear of getting conned and having no recourse.

And when we are oppressed we will shout until we go hoarse, and then we will stop shouting.

And those who have power over us become more brazen and more powerful. And life will go on.

Tupambane na hali yetu. What a shit life.