Fixing the Problem: part 1
Time to stop whining and fix problem. The problem that is South Africa. (No, not by blogging, I'm merely sharing the ideas of otheres here.) That is, after all, what organizations like the YMCA, YCN ministries and the like are trying to do. South Africans have the resources and the infrastructure to do well. What we lack, is what every other place on earth lacks as well: morality. Good, old fashioned morality may no longer be a catchy phrase, but in a place like South Africa its lack is glaringly and tragically obvious. "Though shalt not steal"- "though shalt not kill"- "though shalt not sleep around"- "though shalt get off thy fat ass and do some work"- "though shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, even if their skin color is different"- if people truly believed, and did these things, South Africans could enjoy the beauty and diversity of their country without living in fear.
I intend to write several posts about different things suggested here to fix the problems.
Solution 1: Meet force with bigger force.
Don't dismiss brute force out of hand. Every justice system in the world uses it: crime = jail. Fear is a powerful motivatior. Speeding tickets slow down drivers. Failing grades make students study. Even religons use concepts like karma, and hell, to coerce people into doing good.
It's a common request in South Afrioa (even amongst liberal, loving, level-headed people) that we bring back the death penalty. Our liberal constitution is not suited to the bloodthirsty populace. Sample story: a friend of a friend was driving to JoBurg when his car was hijacked by 4 heavily armed thugs. One smashed him upside the head with the butt of a shotgun, but as he fell, the man (who happened to be an ex-soldier and a crack shot) pulled his custom-made pistol from his sock and laid waste with it. The robbers riddled the van with machine gun fire but the man broke the trap and tore off, leaving one of his attackers dead. The man, who had acted purely in self-defense, spent the rest of the year fighting a lawsuit, because the man he had shot turned out to be an off-duty policeman. The law often helps the guilty, it seems. Often crime does pay, while the law screws around with auto registration.
I sympathize with the man. I don't have a gun or anything (nor do I intend to get one) but the other day walking at night, I was approached by large black men and my hand went quickly to the knife in my pocket. Paranoia rules the day here. "What's this guy doing? Trying to sell stuff to drivers?" "Or checking them out to find one to hijack."
Worse, as civilians are starting to arm themselves in self-defence, criminals resort to pre-emptive violence. "The good ones stab first, then rob" a man incarcerated for armed robbery told me. He has been in jail 6 times and he's 20. South Africa's penal system is backed up to a crazy extent. People await trial for months, while criminals found guilty are released for lack of space. There are no halfway houses, no place for first-time offenders, so kids that get arrested for shoplifting come out members of prison gangs. (to join a gang, you have to stab a warden or get sodomized.) The real thugs don't fear the police, they shoot the police. What's a man with a wife and kids and a pistol to do against a carjacking gang with AK-47's? Tragically, in many cases it's "join them".
It seems clear- and this is after much discussion, with South Africans of different races, experiences and social groups- that we need to get ourselves a new police force, and fast. The old Apardheid-era police force was efficent, but brutal. I don't suggest we bring them back; it's no suprise that the new goverment and their opressors refused to work together, and loathe the cruelties of the old regime. The new police force needs to be tough, but fair. I've always advocated US marine-type soldiers that aren't stuck in Iraq. Men that are well armed, well trained, wear body armour and kind of hungry for trouble. Men then know how to shoot, do things by the book, and are well paid.
A Cape Town police chief asked me what I would do to improve policing here and I said "pay them more". He arged that cops already make enough and the police force needs instead to be instilled with a sense of pride. Cops, he says, no longer feel loyalty to law and order and the badge. Rather, they want to make maximal money with minimal risk. When dealing with organized crime, this is clearly not okay. The laziness, slopiness and general inefficiency of the rest of Africa can not be allowed to taint the justice system, and right now it clearly does.
I feel terrible writing much of this. I know former gang members. I work with them, I try to help in them in prison, they are my friends. Yesterday one of them fixed my car. They are human beings, with families and thoughts and feelings, just like the rest of us. I don't want to wish them harm. I don't want them to be arrested or sodomized or killed.
I don't consider myself especially bloodthirsty; I haven't been in a street fight since grade 9, and I still wince whenever I'm killing fish. I wish I could say that love, hope, and gentleness can win the day. And, in many cases, it can. Seeing the difference in the lives of criminals- murderers- that have found the love of God and a purpose to live is amazing and inspiring. But until the time that all of them are willing to do that, people will keep dying. Innocent people. Women and children are caught in the crossfire of gang wars every day. School children tell me stories about avoiding bullets. More cops, more guns, more jails is a terrible solution, but I fear it is a necessary one.
South Africa, get some cops that fear nothing, shoot straight and spit on bribes. It's time to crack down.
8 comments:
No comments? Someone, please tell me I'm wrong and there are better ways to fight violence than wirh more violence.
And just for fun, ever wondered how prison rape goes down?
Apparently (here at least) it happens in the cell, not the showers. The rapers pick someone young (not strong) and new (no gang to protect them), wind up a towel, wrap it around the neck of the victim and strangle. When the man's neck starts to bulge they punch it- dunno if they hit a vein or a nerve or what but the guy goes limp and rubbery and the sodomy begins.
There isn't enough guards to do anything. Some of the gang leaders are apparently trying to focre the sodomizers to stop, but hasn't happened thus far.
Alright here is the typical left wing educational/psych response:
The only way to crack down on a population to such an extent and not have a rebellion, would be to systematically put it in place so subtly that the people do not realize it is happening to them. It just seems so Orwellian. It may work but at what cost? You will create a place where all the power is concentrated in one group of people. That does not seem like a good solution to stop corruption and greed.
A police state does not seem like a long term solution for anything. If you want to instill a sense of pride and loyalty into people, then you do not take away their freedom and liberty.
People may want the death penalty but studies have shown that (at least in the US) crimes actually increased when the death penalty was put in place (it also costs more to kill a person then keep them in jails for life).
I also don't think that more guns is the solution to any problems. In Canada there are per capita a fraction of the amount of guns in the US and therefore a fraction of the gun crime.
The problem comes in I think with the parents. If you expose your child to violence (I know it is pretty hard not to in SA) they will learn violence. If you teach someone the only way to resolve something is with guns and force then when THEY want to win a fight they will use guns and force (ie: police using more force in general a bad idea).
With the example you used. Civilians start arming themselves to curb the violence. The criminals start using more pre-emptive violence.
So what is my brilliant idea to save Africa? My only idea is that governments need to be the example. They need to show the people how to live (my understanding is that there are not that many good examples out there). There must be so much hurt and anger and pain in the people for all the awful things that have happened in those countries. Start a National program of forgiveness. Start National programs for kids to go after school. Provide parenting classes. Put money into the prison system.
Of course to do all those wonderful idealistic things you need a government that is more interested in the welfarse of its peoples then power and money. All revolutions start with the people. The people need to start demanding better. However when you are served crap all your life you just get used to it.
That is a good response, and exactly what I was hoping for. I hope you are correct, but I have some reservations.
Point by point: There's nothing Orwellian about increasing police presence in this case. We're not talking about restricting freedom, just cops that are willing to go catch criminals, like they do other countries. The population at large lives in fear and SUPPORTS better policing. We want the cops to get murderers of the street. This is not a rebellion, it's common criminals making lives miserable for the law-abiding majority.
I also oppose the death penalty in the US. However, in South Africa crime rates drastically INCREASED after removing capital punishment. This was during the time of government change, so of course that wasn't the only variable. I still don't know that I would support a death penalty, because killing people sucks (especailly when they are already caught and no further threat), but it's worth noting that many "liberal" South Africans, who know and love former criminals personally, believe that it is needed.
Maybe "more guns" was the wrong way to put my point. I would love the government to crack down and remove all firearms from the population. This is very necessary. Surely however, you agree it's ridiculous to have criminals BETTER ARMED tham policemen though. For the law to disarm the gangs, they must be able to fight the gangs- and win. In Canada, criminals are generally unarmed, and police carry sticks and pistols. No one begruges them that. If the criminals carry Uzi's a stick and pistol is not sufficient do do anything except get killed.
There is indeed a ton of hurt and sadness in South Africa. It is heartbreaking. We do our prison programs with the leaders of gangs. Together with other leaders and ourselves, they talk about their feelings (really), regret lost opportunities, and wail about their problems with drugs. Put them back with their gangs and they are tough and violent again, fighting and sodomizing. South Africa HAS a national program of forgiveness (the truth and reconciliation comission). The forgiving spirit of Nelson Mandela is probably all that kept this country from civil war in 1994. There ARE after school and parenting programss, and prisons (with more being built) are actually quite humane. I support all these programs, I work for one. And still I can't help shake the feeling that it's not enough. I stick by the fact that, for police to effectively combat crime, they must NOT be intimidated by criminals.
Shooting back is a bad solution, but letting the criminals run the show because of fear doesn't work either. Every law enforcement agency in the world works on that general principal: if you break the law, we will catch you (by force).
The people DO demand better. The government steals money. This is how Africa works. It sucks. Many of the colored (not black, remember the difference) South Africans actually long for the old Apardheid government. This is tragic, isn't it... people would rather live under systematic racism and discrimination than under freedom, because freedom brings so much crime.
Parents can not shield their child from violence when almost everyone in the cape flats has been a victim of violence, and hears gunshots in the neighborhood regularly. No parent (or very few) wants their child to join a gang, but it still happens.
Finally, "meet force" is not the only or the best solution to solving Africa's problems. I fully plan to write posts about other solutions: "educate the people", "clean up government" and "religous revival". However, I will stick by my statement that a more effective law enforcement agency is needed. And when the criminals use machine guns, on cops, the cops need to find a way yot deal with it.
Alright I will not try to solve a whole continents problem without a) completely understanding the socio-political structure or b) having at least gone there once (but after I have done that, all bets are off :)
Police state....
Maybe, yeah. I dunno.... It seems to have worked in Japan after the War. Before WWII, those islanders were warring & violent, even trying to take over other sovereign countries by force (i.e. the whole Korea debacle). The Yanks weighed anchor in Japanese harbours for years policing & disarming the former Axis nation, and what was the result? Japanese people love Americans! :) Talk about Stockholm syndrome...
I agree that a weighty police force could in fact do good, and an effective (note: not a "seemingly effective") enforcement strategy could actually curb violence and crime, when coupled with what you'll post on later.
Thoughts?
LE.
Kathryn; I'm sorry if I seemed harsh or dismissive in my comments to you. I am just very frustrated with the problems in this country, because many of them are so stupid. Example; prison cells often have 40ish people in them; they will split the cell between two gangs and each gang gets one half of the cell as their "turf". How idiotic can you get? It's little kids playing stupid games, except they have machine guns. Not everyone thinks rationally. unfortunately.
LE... I'm ashamed to say my history is pretty bad, but what you are saying sounds right. I'm not really suggesting a "police state" so much as a well-policed state. For crying out loud, most of the criminals (in the Cape, at least) are high school dropouts with no money. They are quite catchable. I have talked to more South Africans lately (liberal university students, for what it's worth ) and they are all unanimously suggest better, more effective policemen. However, the government is corrupt and inefficient. (Sample quote: "Crime is a problem" plastered over the front page of the newspaper. Apparently the president just said this. Ya think?)
The situation seems very complex. A better police force would help,
but under these circumstances who wants to join the police?
Good parenting will help, but where are the many role models needed?
The only solution I can see for such a situation is divine intervention, where the hearts of people get changed so that they do not only want to love and forgive but also are empowered by the Holy Spirit to do so. Maybe desperation will lead to corporate prayer and confession of sins and God can start something new and wonderful.
Maybe we should join interceding for this country in desperate need.
Esther
Esther...
you are absolutely right. In fact, there will probably be a blog post about revival, but you are too smart and see too far ahead. There is a lot of praying going on already, but as of now it doesn't seem like enough. South Africa (as well as the rest of humanity) needs, genuine, unfaked MIRACULOUS supernatural intervention. I've seen it in the lives of a few (mainly prisoners), let us pray to see it in a country!
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