HAS THE PENNY FINALLY DROPPED?

It is of some relief to many South Africans that the blinkers are now gone vis a vis the realities of the new South Africa.  Until recently this has been a country of pretence, both within and outside our borders.  But even the most valiant supporters of democracy are now disillusioned - overseas television and media which soft-soaped the country's peccadilloes and glorified the burgeoning of what was hoped would be the African continent's shining light have now turned.  South Africa was to be the country that proved the Afro-pessimists wrong, but expectations have been turned on their head.
 
Things started to wobble a while back -  foreign governments warned of crime as tourists were killed and mugged, corruption reared its ubiquitous head, the Black Economic Empowerment syndrome curtailed foreign investment, and the collapse of the police force, the swamping of our cities by millions of aliens, and a general discernment that South Africa's looming modus vivendi was not to be that much different from the rest of the continent became an undeniable reality, even among the most ardent believers in the new dispensation ...
 
The gloves have come off, both here and abroad.  Britain's Sky News' recent programme on crime in South Africa pulled no punches - there were no excuses, no "legacies of apartheid", just a brutal look at a country from which much was expected, and from which little has emanated except decay and decline.  The BBC's John Simpson's report on crime in South Africa so enraged the ANC that they used the racist card to refute Simpson's report.  The most prominent TV network in the Arab world, Al Jazeera, recently presented a one-hour English-language programme on crime in South Africa where no quarter was given to the SA government.  To cap it all, CNN's Africa representative Jeff Koinange and his pregnant wife were held up and mugged outside their offices in Johannesburg.  Within half an hour, a shaken Mr Koinange was on the air to millions of CNN viewers throughout the world, reporting on his ordeal.
 
A July 2006 report by British insurance company Norwich Union, in which the company investigated traffic accidents, food poisoning, violent crime, theft and lost baggage across the world, rated South Africa  number one in the categories violent crime and lost baggage, and fifth in the category food poisoning.  The list was compiled after examining 60 000 claims submitted by British tourists in 2005.
 
Crime has become a catalyst - it has focused and concentrated a rising anger and frustration at the ANC government's gross incompetence, arrogance and lack of accountability.  Celebrity murders have riveted South Africa.  The cold-blooded shooting of world famous naturalist and historian David Rattray shocked people around the world, including the Prince of Wales, a personal friend.  Local singers, actors, businessmen and ordinary people have gathered to protest.  Letters in their hundreds of thousands were sent to the President who, with a certain degree of disdain, agreed to look into the crime situation, at the same time dismissively accusing those who complained of being Pharisees.
 
HONEYMOON
The world's honeymoon with South Africa is over.  The new South Africa, warts and all, is anything but pleasant.  Many of those who hoodwinked the world for so long as revolutionaries "fighting for their people" are now shown to have feet of clay - they are venal and corrupt, uncaring about the masses they purport to represent, while sneering at those who dare to criticize, those who pay their very generous salaries.
 
The rose-coloured glasses have disappeared, and the crime travesty is worsened by the apparent lack of shame and culpability.  The attitude that whatever we do, we'll be in power forever is manifest in, for example, the behaviour of our police chief who rides around in a stolen 4 x 4 vehicle, by the rousing send-off to jail given by ANC big wigs and ministers to convicted MP Tony Yengeni, and the couldn't-care-less attitude to the breaking of his parole rules.  The fact that police commissioner Selebi was given the post of Interpol head reveals how unrealistically the international community viewed South Africa's new rulers.
 
A serious defect in the country's overseas image has been the brazen crimes committed against foreign government representatives in South Africa.  The US ambassador to South Africa said in November 2006 that crime could abort SA's holding the 2010 FIFA World Cup games.  The Iranian embassy has been hit six times.  In one instance, a gun was forced into the mouth of an official.  The safe was broken, cash stolen and personnel assaulted.  The German ambassador reported that some German tour operators who had come to SA to arrange world cup tours were mugged.  During January 2007 alone, the Gabon embassy was robbed by armed men, a Greek embassy official was robbed at gunpoint, the Pakistani embassy was broken into, and a US embassy employee was attacked with a spanner and severely injured at his house.  On the same day, there was an attempted robbery at the Saudi embassy.  In October and November last year, the Bangladeshi embassy was broken into three times in three weeks.
 
Ironically, while President Mbeki was very publicly welcoming the Chinese president in Pretoria this month, a huge wall was being constructed at the Chinese ambassador's residence in Waterkloof because of a recent robbery at the house.
  
KLEPTOCRACY
Not only violent crime upsets South Africa's citizens.  The wholesale plunder of the country's resources is under way by public officials.  South Africa has become a kleptocracy to match even the most brazen of Africa's poachers.  It will take longer to bankrupt South Africa because there's more here to steal.  Lavish overseas trips for government bigwigs and their friends and relatives are commonplace, and the culture of entitlement permeates virtually every facet of public life.  Nepotism is rampant but what adds salt to the wound is a clear lack of shame and an attitude of contemptuousness with which criticism is dismissed as racist and/or whingeing.
 
Because violent crime is rampant, citizens must protect themselves. Internet circulars tell us of the latest hijacking trick - spraying acid into a driver's face.  We are urged to cooperate with the police. We are warned at street crossings about hi-jack and robbery hot spots.  We are forming self-help groups, residents' associations, concerned taxpayers' organizations.  We have to - the government cannot protect us.  They will not release statistics, which are now obtained from insurance companies.

The monthly average of cash in transit robberies increased to 27 for the first half of 2005.  Armed supermarket robberies are easy money for the gangs who storm these stores.  South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world - 51 murders per 100 000 people in 2003 (possibly higher now) compared to 4,6 persons in the United States, India's 3,7 and China's 2,1.  Nigeria reported only 1,5 murders per 100 000 people in 1994, while Egypt's figure stood at 0,4 for the same year.
 
Serious crime has moved into the urban areas - it has been endemic within the commercial farming sector for years.  SA's farmers are the most murdered group anywhere in the world outside a war zone.
 
Businesses that backed the ANC before they came to power are now spending millions on newspaper ads calling for the government to stop crime.  It's a bit late.  And the human capital necessary to curtail crime - what the government euphemistically calls "capacity" - is simply not there.  Adding more policemen is more of the same.  Experienced and dedicated police personnel have left the service in droves.  They simply cannot take the incompetence and corruption, and they are sick of doing the work while someone else less qualified gets promoted.  This is what they tell us, and this is what they tell anyone who will listen.
 
The only real solution is self-protection, and this is a business which has grown exponentially as crime exploded.  Farmers have cooperated on security measures for years.  Now urban dwellers will have to do the same.  Not to do so would open the gates to anarchy which, given the government's current attempts to curb crime, is just out there, looking for the loopholes.  How the government could even think of guaranteeing the safety of half a million foreign visitors in 2010 is beyond comprehension.

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