LETTER: One person’s cadre is another’s ‘ethically challenged civil servant’
Over the past decade or two in SA, ‘cadre’ has come to mean ‘almost always incompetent and often corrupt’
The Oxford dictionary defines “cadre” as “a small group of people trained in a particular purpose or profession”. It is not always used exactly in that sense — over the last decade or two in SA it has come to mean “almost always incompetent and often corrupt person put in charge of an organisation only for his/her political or criminal connections”.
Being an optimist, I cannot believe that the continuous usage of the “c” word is a deliberate contempt for the electorate. So it must just demonstrate how clueless and divorced from reality our politicians are. All the way to the top.
Nowadays a new innocuous word is quickly found to replace an uncomfortable one. ‘Ethically challenged civil servant’ might sound a bit less harsh than cadre.
Vashek Korinek
Florida Hills
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