Recently MPs filed into Kgosi Mampuru II prison in Pretoria to interrogate Vusi ‘Cat’ Matlala. Some of them could have been there during the dark apartheid years and it must have been harrowing to be in those surrounds.
At the rate at which things are going it looks like the visit might not be the last for MPs, for many are implicated and Matlala has spilt the beans. As MP Glynnis Breytenbach interrogated Matlala and concluded that crime was his oyster, it was harrowing that her stern face as a prosecutor was far removed from society and could only see evil in its product ― the gambler who won, but was ultimately caught by the long arm of the law.
It was only when looking at EFF leader Sello Malema’s portfolio of evidence on Matlala’s parentage that I stepped back when he narrated his upbringing. Up to 62% of children are born to fathers who claim to be married against 38% of mothers. This is a sperm-egg concoction that is not far removed from the society we have become.
The claim of fathering in matrimony is much louder than the reciprocal paternal silence that care in parenting demands of fathering. Fathering is not parenting ― a crisis of monumental proportions in South Africa.
The neglect he suffered was a bet placed against his soul — a wager that he would somehow figure it out on his own. He didn’t.
In a video Botswana President Duma Boko says in the halls of justice, silence often speaks louder than the gavel. Boko, a legal titan long before he ascended to the presidency, once offered a chilling rendition of a Mosarwa man he represented — a man who was ultimately executed by the state.
Boko’s recounting of this tragedy was not merely a legal procedural; it was an autopsy of a soul that had been invisible long before the hangman’s noose tightened.
The Mosarwa man, indigenous and marginalised, stood in the dock not just as an accused criminal, but as a ghost in the machine of a society that had never truly seen him. His execution was the final act of a life defined by erasure. He was a man who had been gambled away by a system that deemed his existence negligible, his voice irrelevant and his potential expendable.
Across the border, another tragedy was quietly fermenting, not in the silence of the Kalahari but in the bustling, unforgiving townships of Gauteng.
Consider the story of Vusimuzi. Before the headlines branded Matlala a feared “tenderpreneur” and accused mastermind of assassination plots, he was a child. But he was a child navigating a labyrinth of profound complexity — the son of a mother living with albinism. In a society often cruel to difference, one can only imagine the specific texture of neglect and ostracisation that might have defined his formative years.
The boy who would become “Cat” did not inevitably have to become a figure of fear. But society played a dangerous game with his development. Left to navigate the treacherous currents of masculinity without a compass, the vulnerable boy calcified into the hardened man.
The neglect he suffered was a bet placed against his soul — a wager that he would somehow figure it out on his own. He didn’t. Instead, he became a testament to the “monster” society creates when it abandons its male children to the wilderness of their own trauma.
The Devil’s Casino
I was recently asked to present at the Summit of the Responsible Gambling Foundation. As I prepared my thoughts on the mechanics of chance and risk, a stark realisation washed over me regarding the optics of addiction. I realised that in all my years, I have never seen a drunk person featured on an advertising billboard for alcohol consumption. The models are always smiling, glowing with health and sophistication. Neither have I ever seen a broke, destitute gambler featured on the marketing pitch of the gambling industry. The industry sells the dream of the jackpot, carefully airbrushing out the nightmare of the loss.
We are sold a sanitised lie.
This dissonance brought me back to my tenure as the statistician-general of South Africa. I followed and measured the pulse of this nation, and nowhere was that pulse more erratic and terrifying than in the crime statistics. Year in and year out, the discovery was harrowing. We recorded over a million cases of housebreaking, theft and robbery annually. A million violations of safety. A million moments of terror.
But the statistic that truly reveals the nature of our gamble is this: out of those million cases, the conviction rate hovers around a meagre 6%.
What a Devil’s Casino we have opened in this country. The house — the criminal underworld — wins 94% of the time. We have created an environment where crime pays, where consequences are a statistical anomaly, and where the rule of law is a bluff that has been called. And who are the primary players in this Devil’s Casino? Who are the foot soldiers filling those docket numbers? They are the neglected boy children of South Africa.
We treat the development of the boy child exactly like the gambling industry treats its patrons. We advertise “masculinity” as a state of power and dominance, but we hide the reality of the “broke gambler” — the boy who ends up incarcerated, addicted or dead because he was never given the tools to cope.
We toss young men onto the cheap chips, rolling the dice on their futures, hoping against the odds that they will land on “responsible citizen” despite a 94% probability that the environment will swallow them whole.
The pilot who refuses to gamble
Nompumelelo Masinga is the young female pilot who refuses to land her plane. She has become that matriarch who is determined to fix the boy child, the tragedy of our times. She has all her fingers in every hole of social dissonance. Perhaps from up in the sky she sees it all.
Masinga represents the antithesis of the gambler; she is a pilot.
In aviation, there is no room for rolling the dice. You do not take off hoping for the best; you calculate your trajectory. A pilot understands aerodynamics, weather patterns and the precise mechanics required to keep a vessel aloft. Masinga applies this rigorous, non-negotiable precision to the salvation of the boy child. She has looked at the statistics — the 6% conviction rate, the moral collapse, the “systemic vacuum” in policy — and she has refused to accept the status quo.
As the founder of iButho Le Africa, she recognises that the empowerment of the boy child is not a threat to the girl child; it is the stabilising force that keeps the entire social aircraft from crashing.
Masinga’s iSTREAHM is the flight plan to navigate out of the Devil’s Casino.
- Innovation (I) and Science (S) are the engines, firing the imagination of boys who might otherwise see no future beyond the township tavern;
- Technology (T) and Robotics (R) are the instruments, equipping them with 21st century skills to navigate a digital economy rather than a criminal one;
- Entrepreneurship (E) and Aviation (A) are the wings. By introducing boys to aviation — her own world — she offers them a literal and metaphorical elevation. She shows them that the sky is not a limit, but a playground for the disciplined;
- Health (H) and Mathematics (M) are the fuselage, the structure of body and mind required to sustain the journey.
This framework is designed to move boys from “Lads to Legends”. It is an explicit rejection of the “casino” mentality. Masinga is not betting that these boys will succeed; she is ensuring it by instilling the values of EPICC: empowerment, passion, integrity, collaboration and compassion.
Redefining the ‘Man Up’ mantra
Perhaps Masinga’s most radical act is her reclamation of language. For decades, “Man Up” has been a toxic command used to silence boys, to force them to swallow their pain. It is the command that creates the silence Boko spoke of, and the hardness that consumed Matlala.
In her casino-free zone, Man Up becomes a code for restoration:
- M – mind-set
- A – autonomy
- N – nurture
- U – unity
- P – purpose
It teaches that masculinity includes nurture — the ability to care and be cared for. It teaches unity — rejecting the peer-on-peer aggression that turns playgrounds into battlefields.
The aim is to replace the aimless drift of the neglected boy with purpose.
The story of the executed Mosarwa man serves as a haunting reminder of what happens when human beings are rendered invisible by the law. The crime statistics serve as an indictment of a society that has lost control.
We cannot continue to run this country as a gambling den for our youth. We cannot continue to be shocked by the “broke gamblers” — the criminals and the broken men — when we have done nothing to stop them from entering the casino in the first place.
Masinga is calling for us to close the casino. Through iButho Le Africa, she is proving that if you take a boy from the dusty periphery, give him a mentor, teach him to fly, and heal his emotional wounds, you do not get a statistic. You get a legend. You get a man who contributes to the economy rather than stealing from it. You get a father who nurtures rather than abandons.
The gamble must end. The house must be closed. The flight must begin.
For opinion and analysis consideration, email opinions@timeslive.co.za
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