Police brutality, America and South Africa

This past year has not been a good one for American police – as their tendency to shoot unarmed black people finally hit the point of sparking mass protests.

Near the end of the year two NYPD officers were killed by a lone gunman who claimed to be motivated by their disregard for black lives.

Now I am not going to, as a lot of fellow liberals do, claim that this is nonsense, he was a lone nutter or whatever. I wasn’t willing to do that when people sent death threats in the name of Gamergate, I can’t do that now.

When you judge others you sentence yourself.

But what I can do is talk about the reaction to the deaths.

After those two officers were killed the NYPD turned its back on the mayor, and went on something of a go-slow.

What had the mayor done? He had talked about how he warned his son about being careful of the cops.

This was after police strangled a man to death in the streets, after police shot a 12-year-old for playing with a toy gun, after police shot another man in a store for carrying a pellet-gun while black etc…

2014 was the year of police brutality in the US.

And it wasn’t that great in South Africa either. Our violent crime rate is much higher than America’s and that has an effect on our cops, who are frequently targets.

The thing is – I think we’re handling it better.

When we criticise our police for brutality, when our mayors criticise police for police brutality, they don’t turn their backs on our elected political leaders, and PopCru does not go on a go-slow.

Our cops do not commonly claim the blood of murdered police is on the hands of people complaining about murderous police. We have a culture of facing the problem, and maybe not solving it but at least making the effort.

As we try more and more different things, we will eventually hit upon one that actually works. That we can get things wrong gives us the hope of one day getting them right.

In America after a prankster was pushed down by police, Americans were talking about how he shouldn't have danced behind them, he shouldn't have made them the target of his humour etc…

In South Africa those officers would have been suspended, investigated and possibly criminally charged – because we South Africans would be more bothered about the police brutality than some random guy acting like a clown.

We live in a society where our cops really do deal with high levels of violence and stress the likes of which the Americans could only see in their nightmares, yet we enforce a better standard of behaviour upon them, and they expect better of themselves.

The news does not often write about PopCru, and when we do it tends not to be emphasising something good about the police union – but this time I think we need to acknowledge them, giving credit where it is due.

And this is something I credit to an extent to the ANC too. I think it is one of the ways that the ANC has been a positive force in our country that we do have that willingness to recognise our police as necessary without worshipping them.

While the state of South African policing and crime are far worse than America’s, I have some hope that here things will get better because I see efforts to make them better.

When our officers are caught on camera abusing people, we are willing to indict.

There is a very interesting column about the US military on The Atlantic - the crux of it being the ways in which worship for the armed forces has increased its cost while reducing its efficacy and making things harder for the actual soldiers.

When we make any sector of society out to be something more than human, we stop thinking seriously about it; it becomes a teat to be milked by politicians and an easy set of mouthings to boost support.

Respect when it means silence actually hurts the institutions we show our respect to.

We in South Africa have to an extent avoided that. Our lions are not griffins, we have our heroes but we recognise that they’re still fundamentally human, and that is something to be proud of.

We can talk about what Nelson Mandela got wrong – while still recognising his greater contributions.

A flawed nation can improve, so long as it is willing to acknowledge its flaws.

This is why I feel so positive about South Africa despite my constant criticisms, the fact that I am not alone in being willing to make those criticisms, the fact that some criticisms even come from the ruling party.

The fact that we can see that we are going wrong, even if it isn’t entirely clear how, gives us the hope that one day we can do better.

Our starting position is worse, but we have the will to push, and as we push it will generate momentum.

That is how I see my country – we are part of the developing world, we are young, we are foolish, but in our undeveloped state we can expand, in our youth we can mature and in our foolishness we can achieve wisdom.

We may not have arrived,  but that just means we are going places.