MAKHUDU SEFARA | Did we completely misunderstand Dada Morero?

Joburg mayor Dada Morero has been vilified — and perhaps he deserves part of it — but, if we are fair, does he not have a point?

Let me explain.

Many of us make the mistake of looking at institutions such as the Johannesburg metropolitan police department (JMPD) as places where “our people” are employed when, in fact, they are security establishments. At conception, they were created to help improve our safety.

The accommodation of the unemployed at such institutions must coincide with the provision of safety and security. If the provision of safety requires knowledge and understanding of certain languages and cultures, those with such skills, even if they are not “our people”, must be employed. I will come back to this.

Joburg is one of the contemporary world’s largest cities that attracts people who speak many different languages from around the globe. Some of these are skilled and are allowed in through home affairs department processes, while others jump fences or cross rivers in search of opportunities in the city of gold. Once they arrive, they get a rude awakening: they are forced into inner-city hellholes that cause intermittent fires, they must make a plan to feed themselves and their illegal status makes them easy recruits for criminal participation.

From a security point of view, it would make no sense for a city (or even a country) to be blindsided about what the minority communities are up to

Metropolises such as New York, London, Paris and Johannesburg are home to many diasporic people, who in everyday life feel othered and perpetually suspected, sometimes for good reason. Cities can also be hubs of transnational networks that breed terrorism, cash-in-transit heists and other serious crimes such as kidnappings or hijacking syndicates that send cars to their homelands. In movies, the small group of gangs from minority communities have been depicted as “Little Tokyos” in New Nork or “China Town” and so on.

From a security point of view, it would make no sense for a city (or even a country) to be blindsided about what the minority communities are up to. This is where you need crime intelligence that is not flat-footed. Not long ago, we were all up in arms when the US’s Central Intelligence Agency warned people there could be an attack at the Sandton City mall by terrorists upset by South Africa’s anti-terrorism efforts in Mozambique.

In a city like Joburg, where hijacked buildings harbour criminal networks armed with heavy artillery but where crime intelligence is doing absolutely nothing, what should a city — and by extension its mayor — do? What are the contours of their responsibility to our safety?

Certainly not to employ Ogah from Nigeria as bob on the beat, checking if our car licence discs are expired. That’s too mundane. That also doesn’t seem to be what Morero had in mind.

The security requirements of a major city like Joburg are massive. It is crucial to be plugged into every section of society. It is important to have our security apparatus — be it intelligence services, police or even the JMPD — plugged into all communities, especially those speaking languages many of us don’t understand. Many will agree the city has a duty to infiltrate all criminal elements of whatever language and stop them in their tracks.

The people employed by the JMPD for this purpose need to be 100 or more. Fewer but better, to borrow a popular political phrase. To suggest we turn a blind eye to speakers of foreign languages is shortsighted. When we get explosions in the inner city of Joburg, we will be asking the mayor to “do something” to ensure we are safe.

In 2014 the New York Police Department (NYPD) had more than 1,200 officers proficient in more than 70 languages. In its recruitment, the NYPD has sought candidates with “foreign language skills [who] may be able to put your abilities to good use as an NYPD police officer”.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) security and investigations division offers “language careers” about which it explains: “FBI language professionals are versed in a broad spectrum of linguistic and cultural expertise that is vital to our understanding of the communities we protect and serve.”

While more than 300 languages are spoken in London, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) said its officers are proficient in “129 languages or cultural skills”. For you to be an officer, you need to be documented, as Morero suggested.

Put differently, if the NYPD, FBI and MPS see the need to pay focused attention to the foreigners in their metropolis, why should the JMPD wait for a disaster before appreciating the importance of this? Imagine the Gautrain blowing up under Sandton City. We must prioritise our safety, even if it means keeping five other locals unemployed in exchange for Ogah.

The diversity of a police force is its strength in providing security for those it serves. If this is what Morero had in mind, I believe he should not have apologised

The point is that the diversity of a police force is its strength in providing security for those it serves. If this is what Morero had in mind, I believe he should not have apologised. To think like this is to place our collective safety at the centre of what he is doing. It is to embrace Joburg’s transmogrification from a place where a few came to dig for gold to a modern, multicultural melting pot with concomitant risks.

If Joburg, for example, mounted a proper inner-city cleanup, the legions of foreigners who will be displaced as a consequence will be a serious risk to the city. If we can’t even understand what they say, how do we anticipate and diffuse their plans when we are in the dark about what they do? We need people steeped in their language and ways of doing things, people who are part of their cultures but people who, as Morero said, are properly documented and loyal to this, their new home.

The new home affairs minister, Leon Schreiber, has extended visas to foreigners with documents who are in the country. Why can’t some of them, even if five, help fight crime?

To argue the JMPD could and should employ Shona, Arabic or Kiswahili-speaking officers to help with infiltrating their communities is not to argue we don’t have millions of South Africans who are unemployed and who should be prioritised. Far from it. The people who vote for Morero and those discouraged from voting for him sit at corner shops in Soweto, Diepsloot and other areas.

Morero’s political principal, Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi, is also trying through his employment schemes to provide jobs to the marginalised poor. Further, the general anti-foreigner climate in the country makes it hard for politicians to adopt less popular yet principled positions on policy issues. This, I think, explains Morero’s capitulation.

A secondary problem we are dealing with in our country is that we are quick to react and sometimes manufacture outrage without properly assessing the issues. It’s easy to condemn Morero. But perhaps he should have taken the time to explain the security implications that undergird his suggestion.

If, again, one conceives of the JMPD as a job-creating agency, then Morero is wrong. But if you look at it as part of the broader arsenal meant to keep us safe, regardless of where the threat comes from, then Morero was right to think the minority communities must be infiltrated and whatever threats from their communities neutralised.

To think like this is to appreciate Joburg’s status as a cosmopolitan city. To be comfortable with being unpopular is what leadership is about.