Given the week SA has had, and possibly the one to come, I’ve been surprised how little really good writing has come out of it. The absolute rage among women is wholly justified. Perhaps less so the clearly xenophobic violence in Gauteng. Of course South Africans get hurt in any kind of mob violence but to the extent that this has been manipulated and organised, it is driven by an instinctive hostility to foreigners.
And, of course, if you’re hostile to foreigners you’re probably also hostile to anyone different to you. So the question of ethnicity in SA must also arise. Or just a generalised suspicion of strangers. I recently heard of a (legal) cottage owner on the Transkei Wild Coast who rethatched his rondavel using labour from outside the immediate area. Suddenly, as they were working, the bush behind the hut began to burn, a clear sign that the locals were less than pleased.
It is impossible to know how the ethnic violence began. Clearly there were warnings and clearly the police did not appreciate their seriousness. Clearly Bheki Cele, the police minister, needs to find an answer. Or perhaps he is part of the problem? If we had a guy like Robert McBride running police intelligence we’d probably have this all under control. He’s clever. But Cele fired him. Why, we still do not know.
But if there is a hidden hand behind the violence you need a McBride to find it for you. You need ethical people with criminal minds. All the same, I thoroughly enjoyed Ismail Lagardien in Daily Maverick pointing a finger at the smug Left, people who, while they might not exactly enjoy the sight of marauding mobs cutting down foreigners, get a kind of comfort out of it. Lagardien is a brave writer and always true to himself.
And then there was also this from the always wonderful Jonny Steinberg, a good finger wagging at some of the more hysterical commentary around President Cyril Ramaphosa. Couldn’t be better timed.
The violence on Sunday was, surely, easy to control. Assume that when the denizens of Johannesburg’s hostels get together and foreign businesses are the issue, that something will go wrong. So surround the place where they are meeting with riot police and don’t let them leave their venues until they put down their weapons or go home.
Controlling anger is extremely difficult though, especially if you are trying to keep the people involved alive and the mob is high or drunk. The gilets jaunes rioting in France from late last year until just a few months ago wounded close to 8,000 people, was much more destructive than what we have seen here, lasted longer and was much more openly managed.
This time the xenophobia seemed to coincide with the World Economic Forum meeting in Cape Town. This is not a gathering a South African head of state can ignore, and Ramaphosa would have been hugely embarrassed by what his guests saw on their phones and hotel televisions.
He would have been even more disturbed by how quickly and unexpectedly the rape and murder of a young University of Cape Town student, Uyinene Mrwetyana, boiled into a national outrage. It is not that she was the first. Almost 20,000 people are murdered in SA every year, so it is reasonable to assume that around 10,000 women are murdered in SA each year. Since 1994, that would be around 245,000 murdered women. Almost a quarter of a million. What kind of society does this to women? To mothers and daughters, wives and girlfriends? And the number of rapes is exponentially larger.
SA’s badly dented police service is in no condition to help them, but there might be some consolation in knowing that we are not alone and that, in fact, other countries may have lessons about combating femicide that we can learn. I just found this, from the BBC. I particularly like the unbreakable ankle or wrist bracelet for people convicted of sex crimes or under restraining orders and, also, the audit of 400 police stations.
This story, also from the BBC, contains a number for the amount of femicide victims (assuming femicide is the murder of a partner) around the world in 2017 at 87,000, though it is careful to note that overall, far more men than women are murdered, generally, than women. So maybe my estimate above is a bit askew.
All I hope, though, as the horror of what can happen to women in our society continues, is that we don’t get to read too many stories like this. Nothing makes that right.
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.