We are a nation in the throes of a disaster (neither related to electricity nor floods), writhing, inconsolably, in the pain of losing a mega star, Kiernan “AKA” Forbes, in so callous a manner.
We lose many other things and people in ways that are needless. To be random, our dam levels are low and yet we have had a lot of rain this summer. Don’t assume someone, somewhere is working on a solution. It’s the mistake we made at the beginning of power outages. To persist with this randomness, we export coal that other nations use for electricity generation and yet struggle to get our systems that rely on coal to work optimally for power generation. So we sit in the dark despite the resources. To be clearer, we fail to execute basic things.
We find danger attractive and engage in what appears to be self-destructive behaviour that, unsurprisingly, causes us pain. What seems missing is the symmetry between our pain and corrective action. We return to this point later.
The pain of losing a big personality like AKA forces us to have a national conversation about how he was killed, what made the killing possible and why it’s likely the killers may escape justice. The sense of loss is palpable because we, in our diversity, feel a type of connection to him because, as many have said, he was a genuinely great human being, raw, fallible and yet talented in ways that spawned envy and admiration. We love his music — but also love how human and relatable he was. It is easy to mourn AKA for many different reasons.
His cold-blooded murder, however, has shone a spotlight on the proliferation of guns in our society. It has reintroduced, at our dining tables and water coolers, troubling conversations about the utility of our police force, on the one hand, and why we breed the type of people at ease with being killers. The inkabis. The hired hands.
Granted, there have always been killers since time immemorial. But there seems to be an increase in the number of killers inflicting so much pain on our country. Worse, we now have a proliferation of mass shootings, especially in the Eastern Cape and Gauteng.
Our police minister Bheki Cele might have pretended to be good at some point. He talked tough and won the PR about being a no-nonsense police commissioner. It is plain now that talk is cheap.
In America, the number of mass shootings has climbed to more than 70 this week. USA Today quoted executive director of the Gun Violence Archive Mark Bryant: “There’s not been any year that we’ve had 67 (mass shootings) in six weeks.” The year has barely started and Americans are falling like flies in mass shootings. Their deadliest was at Robb Elementary School in Texas, where 22 lives were lost. They don’t play with guns — they maim. Sadly, we too have too many guns and, like AKA, are dropping dead with monotonous regularity.
AKA’s killing forces us to confront the uncomfortable reality we, in self-destructive mode, have been trying to ignore: do we have a plan to put a stop to the heinous killings? In parliament this week, EFF leader Julius Malema told us President Cyril Ramaphosa is “a man on top ... doing nothing” and “nothing (was) working under you”. The IFP’s Mkhuleko Hlengwa told Ramaphosa to “be decisive” and fire ministers not working.
Our problem with crime is that we have no strategy to deal with it. Doing nothing harms us. Robs us of AKA and many others. It is self-destructive. Our police minister Bheki Cele might have pretended to be good at some point. He talked tough and won the PR about being a no-nonsense police commissioner. It is plain now that talk is cheap. The lion is old and without teeth.
Today, we need police leadership that understands the connection between high crime incidents and low investment in our economy. We need police leadership not simply excited about media appearances and how that helps him assuage our pain, but a leadership that can show the war against criminality is being won. Truth though is Cele is not that leader.
Our problem is the asymmetry of our pain or complaints and our missing collective pursuit of solutions. What we need is a country that can send a message to our president that Cele is a cost, not simply because people like AKA will continue to be killed with troubling impunity. But that dreams of a better life for all and so-called rainbow nation become just that — dreams — because we have no real police minister.
We must make it impossible for Ramaphosa to keep Cele in his position. To do so is to honour the memory of AKA and others who perished because Cele and his troopers are sleeping on the job. This makes it possible, if not easy, for inkabis to finish us off like we are flies. The state will then provide funds for lavish provincial funerals where the cash should have been used to save lives. How many more funerals will it be before our slow-to-act president takes action against Cele? Save us the speeches and the tears and just do what you are in office for before we too are killed.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.