Mercury: The solution is not to ‘kill the bastards’

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4356190

The solution is not to ‘kill the bastards’

April 16, 2008 Edition 1

Imraan Buccus

South Africans are angry. Interest rates are skyrocketing, escalating food prices are making existence impossible for many, the housing crisis is exploding, our president seems to be giving tacit assent to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s attempt to steal an election, and Eskom is threatening a massive hike in the price of electricity.

Crime, for so long the national obsession, is now merely the “cherry on top”.

But how safe can civilians feel when, over the weekend, armed robbers made off with documents from the Johannesburg High Court building?

The robbers overpowered security guards at the court and an office dealing with high-profile organised crime cases was broken into.

And almost every South African has been the victim of some sort of crime.

Recently a friend recalled how, when stopped at a traffic light, a teenager reached into his car and grabbed his cellphone – while he was in the middle of a call.

“How ill-mannered,” he thought. He was able to joke about it because, fortunately, he was the victim of a crime that didn’t come with the brutality that we often see.

In fact, he even quipped that crime in South Africa needed to evolve to another level, where criminals acquired a level of sophistication and courteousness.

Imagine a criminal who greets you politely, saying: “Good morning, I’ll be your hijacker this morning. Please don’t panic, simply hand over the keys and I’ll be off.”

Then, at least, no one gets hurt.

But while jokes may help us cope with the unacceptable crime, it remains a deadly and serious threat to our society. People continue to be victims of hijackings and of violent crime while sitting at home.

Walking in one’s neighbourhood after sunset is a no-no. In a country with such enormous inequality and disparity, some experts are able to show the link between poverty and crime.

Others argue that this is nonsense, as other countries with similar inequality levels do not have the same culture of violence and impunity, and point to police incompetence. But whatever the case may be, South Africans have had enough with crime.

So when, during an anti-crime imbizo last week, the Deputy Minister of Safety and Security, Susan Shabangu, said: “If criminals dare to threaten the police or the livelihood or lives of innocent men, women and children, they must be killed. End of story,” she was echoing the feeling of many ordinary South Africans – even though this was unacceptable behaviour for a leader.

In fact, she also said: “You must kill the bastards if they threaten you or the community. You must not worry about the regulations. That is my responsibility. Your responsibility is to serve and protect.”

Her statement was irresponsible, too, as it lent itself to being interpreted in a range of ways. The fact that South Africans have had it with crime does not mean that the deputy minister can resort to promoting a feeling of vigilantism.

Human rights experts such as former cabinet minister Kader Asmal slammed Shabangu’s statements, warning that it would in effect give the police a “licence to kill”, turning them into vigilantes, as they have been in Brazil.

Asmal warned that this could even result in street children being shot and police engaging in “social killing”.

The critical question in South Africa is: have we not, to some extent, already reached that point?

We have seen police killings in post-apartheid South Africa and we have seen vigilantism.

In Durban, we have seen the mass arrests of street traders last year and the ongoing illegal evictions of shack dwellers by the notorious Land Invasions Unit – clear examples of armed state vigilantism.

The shack dwellers’ movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, with the support of Amnesty International, is suing the Sydenham police for allegedly torturing its leaders.

Even before Shabangu’s comments, some of the most sober-minded critics were arguing that we often saw immoral, unlawful and unconstitutional action by the police.

We need to ask ourselves how things could have gone so badly wrong so quickly.

Some have suggested that this breakdown is because we are now quite close to 2010 and that this is the reason for increased levels of harsh police action, the kind of “social policing” that Asmal referred to.

And, with the way things are going in South Africa, we can well expect increased “social policing” to protect the World Cup from the legitimate and desperate anger of poor people, whose livelihoods and communities have been destroyed to make our cities look good for foreign football fans.

If it does happen that the beautiful game has to be played with a ring of police officers protecting it, not from criminals, but from the anger of ordinary people, our cities will be remembered across the world in a negative way.

And if Shabangu has her way, and police start to “kill the bastards” then even street children, street traders and the poor who hang around the streets had better be careful, or they may be seen as a threat to social order and may just become victims of “social killings”.

South Africans have every right to have had it with crime. But the solution is certainly not to kill the bastards.

International experience, like that of Brazil, should be a warning for us of the dangers of going down that road.