Fair law system to save dream

Our nation needs to rediscover its soul. Crime, gruesome and violent crime, has become a normal feature of our lives.

Whether it is the horrible rapes and subsequent killings of the elderly, the sexual violation of the very young followed by their horrendous murder, or the police brutality that keeps making headlines – as in the recent case of execution of a suspected criminal by a man in blue – violent crime is ever- present in our beautiful country.

With the brutal killing of Reeva Steenkamp, Valentine’s Day too has lost its romantic aura. Henceforth, it would be synonymous with the torrent of gunshots fired by the Paralympian Oscar Pistorious through a toilet door into the defenceless woman.

Lately, even the Minister of Defence, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, has joined the long list of grieving mothers. She mourns her beloved son who met his end in a stabbing.

The nature of the killings and their frequency tell a deeper story – one of a nation with a corrupted soul. Perhaps now, we should all finally accept Nelson Mandela’s plea for an RDP of the soul.

Maybe our critical mistake, considering our apartheid past, was to prioritise a Truth and Reconciliation Commission yet ignore the reconstruction and development of our nascent democracy’s soul.

Our history is marked by wounds. Almost every home has its own story of tragedy and the loss of a loved one.

Though some apartheid era deaths might not have been “purely political”, as Louis Nkosi asserted: "Their deaths are not simply natural deaths even when they are technically so; for even though they do not die at the end of a bullet, flattened against some executioner’s wall, their anguish is in so many ways related to the anguish of the people of South Africa.”

Our approach to crime should therefore include some element that looks into the foundations of the disease engulfing our nation. Further, the commission of crime requires consequences. When crime results in serious punishment, levels of crime are reduced. Deterrent is key in the fight against crime the world over. The trend towards granting criminals early parole irrespective of the crimes committed makes a mockery of our justice system.

A case in point is the recent release of Oscar Pistorius barely a year into his five- year sentence for killing Steenkamp.

Certainly the National Prosecuting Authority has appealed the Pistorius verdict in the hope that a higher court might arrive at a murder conviction rather than Judge Thokozile Masipa’s manslaughter.

Yet the question still arises: what difference would the state winning of the appeal make if in the end convicted criminals do not serve even barely half their required sentences? How will we dissuade people from perpetrating criminal acts if the end result is spending the minimum of time at correctional facilities?

Further, the list of paroled offenders reads like a who’s-who’ in South African society – Schabir Shaik, Tony Yengeni, Jackie Selebi, and lately Pistorious. The impression created is that power and/or money is what helps evade the long arm of the law. It is only the poor and powerless who experience its full might.

When justice ceases to be blind, all respect for law and order goes out the window. Anarchy and chaos enter. Should that happen, the beautiful dream of a democratic South Africa will give way to a terrible nightmare.

With our dream replaced by a dystopian reality we will be left with nothing but to mourn what might have been.

Let us, dear countrymen, like Dylan Thomas urged his dying father, refuse to go gently into the night.

In the case of our democracy we must ensure, as the poet said, that:

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

We must remain free to obey the law.