The police have launched another fancy operation to keep us safe this festive season from marauding bands of criminals.
The announcement this week in Tshwane came complete with new car allocations for the Hawks, platitudes by politicians, and incantations by the police commissioner and his acolytes on how safe this festive season will be.
“We are going to be on the road, our eyes are going to be on them (criminals),” said police minister Senzo Mchunu without explaining where the eyes were before this launch. “It’s going to be eye-to-eye because we are busy profiling criminals in the country province by province, city by city and they are going to be under watch,” said Mchunu. So why did we not have the “eye-to-eye” before? Why are criminals only now being profiled in the provinces and cities?
Is this a new project, which must imply the talkative former police minister Bheki Cele was sleeping on the job? Or the minister was as unclear as he was earlier in the week when he confused relatives of the 18 victims killed in Lusikisiki who gathered at the local magistrate’s court for the appearance of three would-be suspects only to find that no-one was arrested?
As if the platitudes were not enough, police commissioner Fannie Masemola promised us they “will go toe-to-toe” with those engaging in aggravated robberies.
What holds us back is how inured to pervasive violence we’ve become
There has been a lot of violence in the country in the past few weeks. The battle against construction mafiosos has led to a lot of bloodshed. The retaliations by localised criminal groups have led to many deaths. In KwaZulu-Natal, police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi’s officers have no plan but to kill all suspects — whose guilt or innocence is not established — in a way that leaves no witnesses. They think that this will generate hope, when in fact they’re just unleashing police terror.
So when Mchunu launches a plan to keep us safe this festive season, we hope and pray it is, in fact, a plan. Not platitudes. Not slogans. What holds us back is how inured to pervasive violence we’ve become and how receptive we are to slogans about solutions.
The truth is that Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi, of all our political leaders, seems to be fnding the resources to put behind the war on crime. His project announced at the start of the year to partner with private firms with camera infrastructure should be encouraged.
Lesufi’s plan to move resources from other departments to finance the war on crime is a commendable start. Here is a leader who says: “No new resources? No additional budget? No problem, we will make a plan to take this war to the criminals.” The effort by successive Cape Town metro leaders to ensure safety is also commendable.
Other than these, we are on our own. The wealthy of Sandhurst, who can build walls that are bigger than double-story houses, and employ private security to protect them in ways the police could never, pay no attention to Mchunu’s slogans and know that the violence of guns is reserved for “the people”, or “our people” who will soon be called upon to vote in local government elections in less than two years. Even then, Mchunu will still be spewing slogans like “eye-for-an-eye” and tackling crime city by city.
Yet, the truth is simple. Look at how New York ensures everyone’s safety. Each intersection has a metro officer who helps ensure that traffic moves (something our metros have ceded to private sector pointsmen and homeless people) but also help direct tourists, all the while attending to any local misdemeanours (and there’s plenty of those in the Joburg inner city).
If Lesufi succeeds with his camera operations and these are supported by boots on the ground, the Joburg inner city will rise from the ashes. Many of us would like to stay in the inner city if it looked different to what it is now. A future Joburg could look the way New York does today. Many people would like to do business in the inner city.
A major cleanup would drive out the criminals. Maboneng gave us that hope. Parks Tau, as mayor of Joburg, started a process of rolling out cameras and wi-fi throughout the city which was abandoned when he lost the election in 2016. It is this vision that Lesufi is resuscitating. His success will benefit all of us.
We must always remember that the future depends on us, on what we do today, on our intentionality — not on the platitudes. Progress is dependent on an intergenerational chain of actions. We have a generation that gave us our much-valued freedom. There must be a generation that earnestly tackles crime that impedes investment and thus paves the way for meaningful conversations about how the economy can be turned around to include many who remain on the periphery.
The shade we sit under today is the result of actions by those who came before us, those who planted the trees. May we not merely enjoy freedom but also take the time to plant new trees that will ensure those who come after us do inherit something meaningful.
It’s not about this festive season, it’s about a legacy of safety and security in our country.
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