Some murders make the front page, others send shivers down the spines of people across this country, and some rattle the very soul of a nation. The killing of Dr Malekutu Johannes Mehlape, an education official in Limpopo, fits into this latter category.
It is a story that reflects not only senselessness, but the chilling impact of betrayal. Who orchestrated his death? His daughter, Mologadi Magdeline Mehlape, who has now been sentenced to life imprisonment.
Mologadi opened the gate and let the murderers into her father's house under the instruction that he must be killed for having killed her mother using “muti”. The driving force in the story is that a traditional healer gave her information that plunged her into a state of weaponising grief instead of healing. Indoctrination dressed as information has become a danger that is hiding in plain sight.
This country is plagued by cases of traditional healers not only enabling criminals to evade justice, but who also stand accused of being benefactors of the body harvesting industry. Just last week, a mother was accused of killing her two-year-old son, Kutlwano Shalaba, with the help of a sangoma, who, in turn, made claims to police officers and led them to a shallow grave near the R28 in Bekkersdal, Randfontein, where the remains believed to be of the child were found. This, of course, follows the conclusion of the Joshlin Smith's case, where her mother, Kelly, was sentenced to life along with other accomplices for selling the child to a sangoma.
As a nation, we have to reckon with the double-edged role of tradition. Traditional healers provide a significant cultural continuity and alternative health care, but a considerable number of them are enabling violence and paranoia, and are working against rational justice. It becomes toxic when some of them work against the rule of law and shield criminals from the consequences of their actions.
In the same breath that we vehemently condemn such practitioners, we must be reminded of the exceptions. A small victory was observed earlier this month when traditional healer Mnotho Xaba of Dalton Hostel made a citizen’s arrest of a man accused of serial rapes in northern KwaZulu-Natal. The man he turned in allegedly terrorised schoolgirls in Nkandla’s Hlosane village. The man was consulting with him, and he used the information to lead to his arrest — he did the right thing.
In the case of Xaba, the role of civil duty was well executed. He exhibited healing. This is what it should look like, in an environment where spiritual impunity is the gospel of the day and many are willing to look away. His courage must be recognised and replicated.
This war cannot be fought by the state alone. It will be won by ordinary people choosing to do the extraordinary. By asking hard questions. By turning in the guilty. By refusing to be complicit. By taking up the civic mantle
Meanwhile, in KwaZulu-Natal, the rot continues. In just a matter of days, teenager Xolile Mpanza’s violated body was discovered in Dokodweni sugar cane fields, and the life of Olorato Mongale was brutally ended after a date turned deadly in Lombardy West.
These are not just numbers. They are names, faces, stories, and part of a growing dossier of state and societal failure.
We are at a moral crossroads.
We must start by dismantling the culture of silence. We must regulate, not revere traditional healing where it intersects with criminality. We must teach our children, especially our boys, that love does not mean ownership.
Above all, we must understand that this war — on GBV, on patriarchy and on moral collapse — cannot be fought by the state alone. It will be won by ordinary people choosing to do the extraordinary. By asking hard questions. By turning in the guilty. By refusing to be complicit. By taking up the civic mantle.
Yes, the wins may be small — a healer’s moral stand here, a citizen’s arrest there — but they are wins nonetheless. In a country this wounded, that matters. Because a single candle can still break the darkness — and we must keep lighting them.
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