Patricia de Lille’s proposal that tourists be given a special police unit to look after them has raised many important questions over the last few days. For example, did De Lille think of this plan by herself, perhaps after slipping in the bath and hitting her head, or was she given it by somebody who hates her and wants to see her fired?
Mostly, however, the question that has loomed over all the others since this story broke last weekend is plain: wouldn’t it just be more efficient to take our tax rands and burn them in a Weber, instead of paying them to people like De Lille to cook up drivel like this and then release it in white papers?
The plan, in case you missed it, was to investigate the feasibility of establishing “a specialised police unit with the capacity for focused preventive measures and the swift resolution of incidents involving tourists”.
Looking after tourists was vital, the white paper emphasised, because they bring enormous amounts of money to South Africa, and when visitors are robbed, hijacked or murdered (the implication seemed to be) it does material damage to our collective economic wellbeing.
My main concern about the economic argument is its distinctly dystopian undertones.
I imagine that many people can see the sense of this economic argument. The Sunday Times, for example, published an editorial reminding us that “we can walk and chew gum at the same time” and that protecting visitors “could turn out to be the low-hanging fruit in the drive to stimulate and grow the economy”.
With respect to my colleagues at the Times, I would humbly suggest when it comes to crime, South Africa isn’t so much walking and chewing gum as running, doubled over in a defensive crouch, with a mouth far too dry to chew anything.
But my main concern about the economic argument is its distinctly dystopian undertones.
After all, if we are arguing that tourists should get special protection because they stimulate the economy, then surely we are arguing that the amount of protection you get from the state is directly linked to how much you contribute to GDP?
Is this really the argument we want to make; that the biggest employers in South Africa should each have a police station on the grounds of their mansion, while the unemployed millions surviving on government grants should have no protection at all?
Perhaps I’m guilty of reductio ad absurdum here. Perhaps the Sunday Times is right, and there’s a pragmatic middle ground that might work. But I still can’t shake off my deep unease about how De Lille has linked wealth generation to security.
I’m also confused by reports I’ve read, subtly trying to defend De Lille’s plan on the grounds that it’s becoming more dangerous to visit South Africa. Perhaps it is, but let’s be very clear about one thing: if the 8-million visitors who come to South Africa every year were experiencing the same level of violence that citizens face, we would be seeing roughly 3,000 tourists murdered each year. In a bad year, we’re seeing two.
Mostly, however, I’m just gobsmacked by what bad politics it is, this move straight out of the Marie Antoinette playbook where you propose spending taxes to protect holidaying foreign nationals while the citizens who paid those taxes either have to pay for private security or hope for the best with a broken police service.
Still, at least we can console ourselves with the knowledge that De Lille’s tourist police probably won’t see the light of day. After all, as Eskom has taught us, government plans are a bit like Las Vegas: what happens in a white paper usually stays in a white paper.
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