We have become so used to morose and ineffective policing we accept mediocrity. While there are noises to arrest Vladimir Putin and for Jacob Zuma to go back to jail, we can’t even combat the most basic of crimes. When is this going to change, asks Gasant Abarder in a new #SliceOfGasant column.
Abarder, who recently launched his book, Hack with a Grenade, is among the country’s most influential media voices. Catch his weekly column here.
It was a surreal scene that played out in front of a queue of motorists waiting for the green light. There was no panic, hooting or shouting as two men approached a courier van in a smash-and-grab robbery attempt. There was even less of a reaction as the occupants of a German sedan fired shots in the air that saw the would-be robbers scamper.
By the time I reached the next intersection of Robert Sobukwe Road on our way home, I had forgotten what had happened. In fact, I only remembered a few days later. I had also been involved in one of these attempted smash-and-grabs as my assailant reached for my phone. I was able to fight him off. Many of my colleagues haven’t been as lucky.
I am de-sensitised to crime here in the wild, wild Western Cape. I was more intrigued by the guns the chaps who fired bullets into the sky were packing. I think they were Glocks.
Since then, I’ve been googling firearms. I have been fantasising about shooting off the middle finger of a taxi driver that brandishes that poorly manicured digit with a Glock whenever they’re breaking the law and I object.
Of course, I’d end up in jail and not him.
It made me think about the recent court application to have Russian President Vladimir Putin arrested for war crimes should he set foot in South Africa to attend a Brics meeting. This, while Jacob Zuma is in hospital in Russia and due to be reincarcerated. The irony doesn’t escape me.
Yet, we can’t enforce the most basic laws. Last week, I tried to assist two moms get justice. One of them trying to locate a deadbeat dad who is in and out of court for conning people out of their hard-earned cash for building projects that never happened. He isn’t paying maintenance for his kids.
The other is a stepmom who is trying to help her husband because he has limited access to his child, who was taken out of school by the biological mother.
These are law-abiding people who pay taxes and make meaningful contributions to society. But they are denied justice and are sent from pillar to post to resolve challenges involving children – which any society would treat as urgent.
Not here in sunny South Africa where victims of crime are treated like criminals. My two friends had access to the internet, data and landlines and were able to stay on hold for huge amounts of time. They kept dialling until they got through to the respective courts or relevant law enforcement offices, even though there were no resolutions.
What then of the mom who is without work, has no data or airtime and can’t afford to travel to a court to find out if she can locate her deadbeat baby daddy? Is this the brand of justice the people who liberated this country fought for?
Back on Robert Sobukwe, I am a sitting duck every morning and afternoon to and from my place of work. There is no real visible policing. The often-malfunctioning traffic lights make me even more vulnerable. It moved me to write the following poem:
The Robots of Robert Sobukwe
The build-up of cars on Robert Sobukwe is brought upon
by traffic lights that haven’t shifted from green to amber,
and red, for weeks now – despite us calling them robots.
These three-eyed cretins are far from the name we reserve
for intelligent machines of such technology.
They stand tall on yellow trunks on a road named for a giant
of our Struggle. Yet, they’re as lifeless as the ceramic ornaments
that aunties living in the tenement council homes, lining this major
artery, proudly display on their mantelpieces. Taken out by power
outages, vandalism or simply a lack of will.
Inside fuel-guzzling metal cages in the congestion sit the exasperated,
the hard-working, the defaulters of bills, mothers, fathers, breadwinners
– who try to keep the wheels turning. The ire etched on their faces as
they wait, wait, wait. All the while, taxis move like cockroaches into
the tiniest of crevices to manoeuvre to the front of the queue.
From the Bonteheuwel side of the road, you can see the unused train
line to the destination. As useless as the robots on Robert Sobukwe
and part of the reason the roadway is jam-packed –
a route that leads not only to Cape Town International Airport
but one of the Cape’s leading universities.
The law abiders inch forward towards the front of the intersection
in a slow-moving slipstream. The signs that remain, not yet stolen
for scrap menacingly read: ‘Smash and Grab Hotspot’. Like
sardines trapped in their cans the motorists sit,
hapless to the threat and waiting to be picked off.
The smash-and-grabbers are sharks, sensing
blood and weakness in every open window,
a handbag left unattended or a smartphone
waiting to be nicked. It’s nice to see traffic officials every few kilometres
enjoying a coffee at a service station. The rest write fines at the airport
for minor parking and drop-and-go infringements.
Robert Sobukwe – a pathway primed for major industries of logistics
and manufacturing – is a lawless hell run. Rules of four-way stops
ignored long before the ink on K53 driver’s licence tests had dried.
This is no way to honour a giant. The lifeless robots
of Robert Sobukwe
bear witness
to his second wave of oppression.
The majority of law-abiding South Africans deserve better.
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Picture: Sincerely Media / Unsplash