SA is infested with a cancer of criminality from head to toe.
These 13 words, by Eswatini government spokesperson Alpheus Nxumalo, may well ignite a diplomatic brouhaha between SA and its tiny, landlocked neighbour.
A combative Nxumalo made the stinging observation on Tuesday, speaking on SAfm, denying what he described as “wild” claims by former EFF secretary-general Godrich Gardee that Eswatini was involved in his daughter Hillary’s murder in SA.
“We won’t tolerate insults,” fired back SA’s department of international relations and co-operation spokesperson Clayson Monyela. “We’ll use diplomatic channels to seek an explanation from the Kingdom of Eswatini regarding this unfortunate statement by their spokesperson. No country is immune from crime. That’s why we all have criminal justice systems.”
SA is clearly irked by the comment and the negative, even damaging, picture it paints for would-be investors and tourists.
But on the flipside they invariably ring true for the many victims of daily violent crime in SA. A cursory scan of the headlines over the past few days is sickening. The gang rape and robbery of eight women during a music video shoot in Krugersdorp, Gauteng. A 23-year-old female engineering student murdered at a university residence in KwaZulu-Natal. Two grade 12 girls hacked to death before their bodies were dismembered on the KZN south coast. The list reads like a horror story.
SA is clearly irked by the comment and the negative, even damaging, picture it paints for would-be investors and tourists.
Police minister Bheki Cele’s comments on the horrific gang rapes in Krugersdorp demonstrated, to some extent, how desensitised we have become to such terrible crimes. “One woman was raped by 10 different men. The other one by eight, the other one by six, the other one by four, [the other by] three. The one 19-year-old was lucky — if it is lucky — [to be] raped by one man.” Though he qualified the sentence with “if it is lucky”, the minister found himself on the receiving end of a backlash. Understandably so. Rape is an abominable crime.
Eusebius McKaiser, writing in this publication, suggested that despite using the qualification “if it is lucky” Cele had revealed, through his unconscious commentary, an horrific feature of rape culture in SA: that we grade victims and survivors of rape by imagining some instances as more shocking than others.
McKaiser argued rape had become so common we were only shocked if a report of rape featured detail that was more gruesome and gratuitous than the many cases we had heard about before.
Perhaps we are infested with a cancer of criminality. National police commissioner Gen Sehlahle Fannie Masemola this week said tighter enforcement of the Firearms Control Act, the national and provincial Liquor Acts, and the Second Hand Goods Act, as well as a strategic mounting of roadblocks, would help reduce serious crime. This is welcome news, but there is a long way to go in the fight against this cancer.
It is true no country is completely immune from crime. But while the diplomatic process seeking an explanation for the stance taken by Eswatini unfolds, the government and civil society should be less preoccupied with perceptions and put all of our energy into tackling the issues on the ground that fuel those perceptions.
SA appears to be grappling with an upsurge in violent murders, rapes and other crimes. We need to tackle this scourge head-on. Now. The lives of our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and children depend on it.
