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My apologies; I’ve misled readers about my
native South Africa. I called it the most violent place on earth
outside a war zone. I was wrong. BBC World recently—and
reluctantly—disclosed that South Africa jostles with Iraq and Colombia
for the title of most violent country in the world, war zones
included.
In a short segment, correspondent John Simpson reported that in South
Africa, on average, 50 people are murdered every day (population: 47
million), 3 times that number are raped; and 300 are violently attacked
and robbed daily. And these are the official, likely filtered, figures.
They say nothing about the seldom-reported,
hundreds of muggings carried out in broad daylight and captured by
security cameras. According to Robert McCafferty of the United Christian
Action, moreover, the South African Medical Research Council tallies 89
daily deaths; Interpol’s statistics are double those released by the
police—a bent and brutal outfit whose chief has been linked to the mafia
but has yet to be suspended.
When my family and I presciently left South Africa in 1995, it was still
a country with a space program (on which my husband worked), “gleaming
skyscrapers,” and department stores that rivaled Macy’s. The Central
Business District in Johannesburg bustled. Crime was well controlled.
When mobs stoned cars en route to the DF Malan Airport in Cape-Town
(geographical names across the country have since been changed to
expunge Afrikaans history), a tough and competent police force sprung
into action. An equally impressive Western system of Roman-Dutch law
dished out just deserts in response to "muti-murder" (ritual killing) or
“necklacing” (placing a car tire around a putative offender’s neck and
igniting it with gasoline).
A decade hence, the city of Johannesburg, renamed Egoli,
looks
like Mogadishu—streets strewn with garbage, many spectacular
skyscrapers overrun by squatters, vandalized, or boarded up with brick
by desperate owners. The five-star Carlton Hotel closed in 1997. The
safety of its guests could no longer be guaranteed. Ditto other
landmarks such as the Great Synagogue and the green glass Garden Court
Hotel.
The specter is repeated across South Africa. Gun battles are commonplace
on city streets. Shopkeepers often sit behind iron bars. Stories abound
of soccer moms and dads being robbed during a game. As the Christian
Science Monitor’s South African correspondent put it, “Nothing says
‘Home Sweet Home’ like 10-foot walls, electric fencing, burglar bars,
and at least one panic button wired directly to an armed-response team.”
Recent prominent victims of criminals include Nobel Prize-winning author
Nadine Gordimer, assaulted in her Johannesburg home, and Anglo-Zulu War
historian David Rattray, murdered in his Northern-Natal lodge.
So, to spare myself a future mea culpa, be advised that the BBC’s crime
statistics were, in all likelihood, obtained from the police who’ve been
less than frank about the scope of the carnage. Malfeasance, graft and
corruption are all in a day’s work for a force hollowed out by
affirmative action. If you object to this unflattering characterization
observe them in action on
YouTube. The BBC has filmed a fairly typical crime-scene
intervention during which the police “think about” arresting a man who
had stabbed another in the face, but … “change their minds. He is
allowed back on the streets again.”
“Think,” of course, is the wrong word—especially when it comes to the
brain trust of the ruling African National Congress. President Thabo
Mbeki ignored the BBC’s otherwise incontinent exhilaration about
everything else South-African, choosing instead to frame as racism the
network’s newfound realism vis-à-vis crime. Mbeki wields this ad
hominem like an assegai. He is, however, much less adept at logic.
“Nobody can show that the overwhelming majority of the 40-50 million
South Africans think that crime is out of control. Nobody can, because
it’s not true,” he admonished. Thabo “thinks” truth is decided by
majority vote; Thabo “thinks” that if he could get a representative
sample of South Africans to agree crime was insignificant, then that
would settle the matter.
It so happens that South Africans are fed up (“gatvol” in Afrikaans)
with crime. Why else would communities across the country be staging
marches in protest? The futile purpose of these events is to present
Mbeki with a petition. The premise for such folly being that the ruling
kleptocrats are not only competent, but well intentioned and caring too.
Thabo will take note, mind you, if the once-mighty Afrikaners take to
the streets with their weapons, not with petitions and scented candles.
Mbeki’s ministers share his oil-and-water relationship to the truth. One
of them told
itvNEWS that when adjusted for population, levels of crime in the
Unites States approximate those of South Africa. Lies. Going by the
underreported, police crime numbers, the murder rate in South Africa is 10
times worse than the US. According to the MRC figures, it’s 14 times
worse.
At least the Safety and Security Minister is honest; he doesn’t conceal
his racial hostility. “Only whites complain,” he smirked, adding that
“they can continue to whinge until they are blue in the face, or they
can simply leave this country.”
©2007 By Ilana Mercer
WorldNetDaily.com
February 23
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