SA Police Disservice

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Police brutality in South Africa is hardly new. Most people probably avoid speaking out about it publicly, fearing the unwelcome sound of jack-boots outside their front door in the early hours of the morning, or late hours of the night – just as the police under our former apartheid government were inclined to manoeuvre.

Or perhaps most people are caught in two minds about our police: they would rather have them as a barrier between us [the presumably law-abiding citizens] and the rampant lawlessness engulfing the country – brutality, corruption and incompetence notwithstanding, as opposed to being totally exposed.

Even as I read this blog yesterday by Llewellyn Kriel in M&G’s Thought Leader which describes his personal ordeal of being bullied, manhandled and humiliated by the police at a roadblock, I had no idea of the drama that had unfolded earlier in the day, in Ficksburg in the Free State, also involving our out-of-control police service.

In the latter incident, police brutally assaulted and killed murdered a protestor who was participating in a public demonstration against the ANC-government’s poor record of service delivery in the area.

As Pierre de Vos argues on Constitutionally Speaking, this is not  a very healthy state of affairs for our democracy, flawed as it is:

Where the police becomes a law unto itself, where it sees itself as at war with the community, where it is politicised and sees its task a protecting the leaders of a specific faction of the governing party (as the apartheid era police did), then the police becomes a threat to democracy. Instead of working in partnership with communities to solve crimes, they take sides and see any kind of political protest as illegitimate and as part of a plot to overthrow the government. When that happens the police stops being an institution in service of democracy and starts being an institution in service of itself and of that faction it serves.

Read the full article here.

If you’ve got murder on your mind, come to South Africa

Hmmm. I’ve just read that our Tourism Minister, wants to promote South Africa as a great destination for shipping cruises. May I suggest (dis)honourable Minister, that we’ll make more money promoting this country as the ultimate murder destination.

Yes, that’s right. If you’re thinking of knocking off someone, bring or lure them here. You will not find a more beautiful, accessible, murder-friendly destination in the world. Forget about Mexico, Afghanistan or Iraq; you need to do the deed without having to worry about getting knocked off yourself.

Your chances of getting caught are pretty slim; the incompetence of our police (dis)service is legendary. They’re however quite good at forming blue-light flashing, motorised convoys to escort our self-important, fat-arsed politicians around at break-neck speed on our soon-to-be open-tolled roads, forcing tax-paying citizens out of the way. That, and turning a blind eye to the looting of the treasury by our elected (sigh!) politicians.

However, you need to take cognizance of the following to ensure that your chances of being arrested are eliminated or minimised:

• Don’t plan your murder or hit in any area that is run by a competent Provincial Administration; that is to say, don’t do it in the Cape Province. Rather select any one of the other corrupt ANC-governed Provinces. Polokwane and the Eastern Cape are a good bet.
• Don’t hire shifty, good-for-nothing mini-bus taxi drivers as part of your hit squad. They’re likely to get caught after boasting about it in the local township shebeen (unofficial bar, to you foreigners). Don’t hire drug-peddling Nigerians either; they’re just good at extortion, fraud and peddling drugs off course. Don’t approach any of our politicians either; they may like stealing, and don’t give a hoot about crime, but I don’t think they’ll be party to murder.
• Don’t ask that cougar from Pretoria, who planned a hit on her rugby-playing boyfriend or anyone on honeymoon, for advice.

Now that you’re all set to get away with murder, please consider first spending some of your Euros and Dollars on normal touristy things; even visit some of our idle World Cup stadiums, or take a cruise. We could sure do with the money, and so could our politicians.