South Africa is drowning in a deluge of violent crime and lawlessness which threatens to result in total anarchy. Citizens are at a loss as to how to react to this sustained wave of violent crime and murder, especially when confidence in government has been so shaken.
The death of a nine-year-old girl, Sadia Sukhraj, in Chatsworth, Durban, during an attempted hijacking of her father’s car is a painful reminder of the terror which surrounds us literally every day.
It is impossible to imagine the pain the parents of this innocent child are going through. Just the possibility that the father might have shot his daughter as he pursued his hijacked car with the child inside, is beyond comprehension. But his pain, is our pain. What has happened to that family has happened to all of us.
All it has taken is a deepset atmosphere of violent crime.The death of yet another child happened in the Eastern Cape during an Emergency Medical Services staff strike. According to media reports, the child was waiting to be transferred from Butterworth to East London, but due to the strike, no ambulance was available.This is unacceptable. It is a crime similar to the crimes committed by striking workers at Charlotte Maxeke Hospital in Johannesburg. Striking workers reportedly turned patients away, and interrupted and halted surgery.
We are paying for turning a blind eye to lawless protest. The regular spate of cash-in-transit robberies, in broad daylight, are being rolled out like a deliberate campaign.
Explosives and automatic assault weapons are used and a blatant disregard for human life is brazenly displayed by criminals who obviously have no regard for their own lives. The organised manner in which these heists are conducted points towards trained gangs of robbers. Police corruption consistently rears its ugly head when we hear reports of these violent crimes. It is a situation which leaves citizens feeling extremely exposed.
At the very same time, people in rural areas and farms, far away from police stations are victims of violent criminals who commit heinous crimes without fear.
In the townships, the bloodletting continues unabated as people have come to accept an existence which is far below what our Constitution envisaged. The bloodletting is so blatant that we tend to close off our minds to it. It is too ghastly and too horrific to attend to. Yet this is what we need to do. We must face the scourge of crime head-on.
To watch great men parading great often ill-gotten wealth in front of our eyes has been severely damaging. To witness political expediency gaining the upperhand over every established societal norm has been disastrous.
To watch impunity being flown high like a national flag has entrenched such impunity enough to turn citizens into criminals, and criminals into hardened criminals. This has even raised the profile of criminals in society, who are now seen as movers able to navigate the hostile environment called South Africa to earn top money while hardworking citizens earn little or nothing. While this does not excuse criminals from responsibility, it does open our eyes to the plethora of factors which feed into lawlessness and crime.
This lawlessness and violence is also very possibly a symptom of a brutalised and traumatised society. Our history of colonialism and apartheid, something we must mention for a lifetime, has created a monstrous society. But at the same time, the brutal era of Jacob Zuma has exacerbated the situation. I use the word brutal because the brutality of Zuma’s era has been subtle. It has, as a result, been deeper and more damaging. The experience of betrayal by leaders we regarded as almost beyond fault has been a terribly traumatic experience.
But the brutality has been physical as well, as the state allowed criminality to terrorise our people unabated.
As we try to pull ourselves up from this abyss of violence, crime and murder, it must be clear that we will not solve this with guns but with the law, smart policing and societal renewal. We do not want our police to become legalised assassins.
Rather, the security sector must be reclaimed from the grasp of the Zuma cronies. Resources must be made available to our police and training must fit the challenge we are facing. But most importantly, leaders must work to heal this nation and coax it toward health – from politicians, business, academic, traditional to church leaders!..