Try as we might, it seems mighty difficult to get the Americans off our backs. They won’t leave us alone — their guns are trained on us 24/7. South Africa has become their whipping boy. And they seem to be enjoying themselves, otherwise they’d have stopped it.
The idea behind President Cyril Ramaphosa availing himself for that spanking at the White House was that Donald Trump, having been mollified or won over, would thenceforth look kindly on us and ease the jackboot just a tad. But no sooner had Ramaphosa and his entourage been ushered out of the Oval Office than the US administration issued a travel advisory warning its citizens to give South Africa a wide berth, or visit at their own risk.
It’s quite chilling to read the document. It warns of terrorist attacks, kidnappers — who it claims, target US citizens — and carjackers around every dark corner. Even activities that are regarded as normal in any democratic society such as demonstrations, protests and strikes are seen as a threat to the safety of American tourists. And they are apparently likely to crash into broken-down vehicles ore run over live animals should they dare to drive outside the metropolitan areas at night.
The US embassy in Pretoria seems to have done a splendid job. It has thrown everything at us, including the kitchen sink. But we really can’t blame the Americans. They got it from the horse’s mouth, as it were.
Our guys, with the head of state at the helm, went to Washington to confirm and corroborate the narrative of South Africa as a crime-ridden society. And they seem to have done a good job. But that’s by no means a hanging offence.
What was depressing however, was to see the people who run this country expressing impotence in dealing with crime in such graphic terms and almost begging Trump for help
What was troubling — and depressing — however, was to see the people who run this country expressing impotence in dealing with crime in such graphic terms and almost begging Trump for help. Trump, contemptible git that he is, merely lapped it all up and shovelled more coal onto the fire.
According to figures released last month by a British publication, Security Journal UK, the two most dangerous cities are in the US, Albuquerque and Baltimore, with Cape Town third. To mention this is not to minimise the devastating effect that crime has on our society. It is merely to expose the hypocrisy of those eager to point out the mote in other people’s eyes while avoiding the beam in their own. No country should exploit another’s pathologies or fragilities. Crime affects all societies.
In fact, the main victims of crime in this country are local residents, not foreigners. They’re sitting ducks, with a government that appears almost hapless — initially it did not take the problem seriously enough, and the electorate has repeatedly failed to punish it at the polls. Crime is a living reality in this country, an albatross that we’ve singularly failed to cast off. People live in fear of simply walking in the streets. Even turning our homes into fortresses has not deterred the criminals.
For most of its time in power, in the early years at least, the ANC has seemed in denial about crime. It was almost seen as the obsession or preoccupation of the wealthy suburbs. “If the black townships can put up with crime, why can’t you,” seemed to be attitude. As if it was acceptable for township residents to live with crime.
Complaining about the crime rate was almost regarded as unpatriotic. There was even a time when president Thabo Mbeki and Steve Tshwete, his safety & security minister, refused to release crime statistics, as if the public had no right to the information. Mbeki and his lieutenants inhabited a place where the government or the leadership told you only what they believed you needed to know, à la George Orwell’s 1984.
Those initial missteps and the government’s head-in-the-sand attitude not only encouraged general lawlessness but spawned new types of felony. Kidnapping and the killing of prominent figures have become a roaring business. Human trafficking, especially of women and children, is a sad reality. Gender abuse, especially the killing of women, often by men who claim to love them, is a running sore.
The police can’t cope; they’re in the main corrupt and incompetent. There are therefore no consequences for wrongdoing. Criminals often get off scot free. Judges and magistrates seem at times to live in a fantasyland, always eager to release suspects on minor technicalities. The less said about the National Prosecuting Authority the better. It’s the pits, apparently run by people who have just been hauled off the streets.
But South Africans also have a tendency to make excuses for criminal behaviour. People commit crime because they’re poor and/or unemployed, and, don’t forget, we have the most unequal society on earth. So, we must just put up with criminality. And yet neighbouring countries that are poorer than us don’t experience the sort of crime we do. But the citizens of these countries get up to mischief when they come here.
But the biggest hurdle is that some of those in power don’t have clean hands, to put it mildly. As potential prosecutorial targets themselves, they’re unlikely to encourage a robust or activist criminal justice system.
Also, the public seems to have a fetish for wrongdoers, especially those in positions of power. Jacob Zuma, probably by far the biggest skelm, is the most popular politician in the country and his party’s parliamentary caucus is nothing but a rogues’ gallery. Those still hoping, for instance, that the government will implement the recommendations of the Zondo commission are whistling in the dark. Turkeys are not in the business of voting for Christmas.
It’s quite simple, really. If you want a safe environment free of crime, don’t support or elect criminal suspects into power.
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