The proverb says it plainly: never poison a stream from which you may one day want to drink. Wole Olaoye opens his column with this old wisdom, and it lands with the weight of something our grandparents knew long before it had a name. The modern version, "don't burn your bridges," says the same thing in a business suit.
At its most literal, the warning is about ecology and resource stewardship. A community that pollutes its own water supply is a community writing its own obituary, slowly and without drama.
But Olaoye is reaching for something bigger here, pointing the proverb squarely at South Africa and the choices it has made in how it treats its neighbours and partners on the continent. The title leaves very little to the imagination.
Karma, as the piece frames it, is not mystical. It is simply consequence catching up with cause, and no country, however powerful within its region, gets a permanent pass on that.
Whether you agree with Olaoye's argument or not, the question he is really asking is one every nation should sit with: what streams are we poisoning today that we will desperately need tomorrow?
Originally published by Premium Times.