Contrary to popular belief (or is it make-belief?), crime was not only recently introduced into South Africa. Xenophobes and the anti-ANC types must just sit down and shut up on this issue. Crime goes back a long way - it just was quarantined into the townships and media had no freedom (and probably no interest?) to report on it. No, the Cape flats, Alex, Soweto, etc, didn't suddenly become violent after 1994. Crime, like most other South African social ills that are taking centre stage in the media, is pretty much a symptom of a dormant STD contracted during the sodomy. What has changed is the advent of freedom of expression, enabling the media to report liberally and to even abuse this platform. So what did crime look like before 1994? Read.
Stokvels
As far as extra mural activity goes, stokvels were a permanent fixture of the township weekend. Grown-ups and kids looked forward to their buzz, albeit for different reasons. Kids would get liberally tipped for being sent to buy beers, cigarettes, and spykos; and to collaborate with the uncles and grootman's when it's time to "smuggle" the potential aunties from their fathers' houses, sometimes only to return a few days later. That's if the love-struck uncle didn't decide to shobedisa her.
Ok, for the uninitiated, stokvel is not necessarily a social investment club - at least not in this context - it's the often-associated party that could last for days on end, spanning the weekend - particularly in summer. There's an important distinction between stokvels and shebeens that deserves mention. Stokvels were for "social drinkers", whereas shebeens were for the more devoted types. Shebeens are probably what inspired convenient stores. U found all you needed there (that would be booze, cigarettes, basic eats
, and condoms) on demand. Shebeens even had credit facilities.
Ho shobedisa
I know I referred to how an uncle might decide to shobedisa a woman. (By the way, an uncle is any older gentleman) This is the oft misunderstood and abused idea of marriage proposal. The girl disappears with the boy for anything from days to months, loosely followed by the boy's family visiting the girl's family to own up to the boy's transgressions (often including that the girl is now pregnant). This is pretty much an entrée to lobolo negotiations and later a wedding. Girls' parents (particularly, the mothers) very quickly get to know about their daughter's whereabouts though, and they don't necessarily want to get in the way of the unfolding love story. So it's not abduction, for crying out loud!
You know it's not abduction because the girl has a support structure that ensures she gets her stuff "smuggled" to her from home and the boy's parents know not to delay initiating the formalities because such delay will worsen the fine associated to the whole shobedising; the meaning of which should now be fairly clear so I shall move along.
Violence
Navigating the township weekend involved stokvel-hopping, showing off their
jewish (fashion),and skilfully dodging gang violence. Of course, the then government wasn't interested in protecting township populations. It was not uncommon to witness a man being butchered to death in full view of young and old people. I recall seeing a guy succumbing to countless
okapi stabs, mainly in the neck. I saw more than a fair share of this stuff and I still cringe at these thoughts.
I'm not even going to bring up the violence directly inflicted on township dwellers by police, etc, in the form of massacres as so on. I am interested in the black-on-black violence that didn't even look like it had any connection to the apartheid government. It just looked like savages that are simply too barbaric to live peaceably with one another. This continues today but, fortunately or unfortunately, it's no longer limited to townships and media is no longer restricted from reporting on it. And today those who hate the ANC talk about crime as though it's an ANC problem...
The way forward
...a lot of data exists on
problems associated with children's witnessing of violence. The apartheid system exposed everyone to atrocity from birth to grave. The generation that is currently in power (not just political, so that includes all spheres of influence) bears that heritage. The reality of South Africa is that we're obsessed with romantic ideals and we have neglected the need to uproot the effects of aeons of systematic bastardization. Is crime an ANC problem? Yes and no. Our government officials hail from townships and many of them left for military training in exile. Really speaking, this idea of a crime-free society is not really something they were raised with so in terms of Maslow's hierachy of needs, crime isn't natively a high priority issue to them, it's something they understand intellectually and not any deeper. The corruption that does happen in government tells us the story of the survival ism.
A few days ago, I attended
Father Michael Lapsley's
book launch. His is a story goes priest who became a freedom fighter and survived a letter bomb in 1990. Today he runs
the Institute for Healing Memories, which concerns itself with the unfinished business of healing.
We'd do well to focus on stopping the bleeding before we talk lofty development goals. Our desperation for sensational stories that support the South African story of a miraculous end to oppression is understandable, but we need to give ourselves permission to apologize where necessary and give way for genuine forgiveness. There's much more talk about in-vacuum forgiveness and little-to-none about apology. As a result, we seem shocked when we see stories such as the
racist video from UOFS and the many similar stories that show the dark remnants of our past that e'd rather not talk about.
We have the resources that it would take to reverse the legacy of apartheid, but this forced marriage is just not how to do it. It's as perverse as an idea of a rapist and his victim getting married and hoping to imagine it into becoming a fairytale. No, this is not to say we'd necessarily be better off without the ANC because nobody's tried and tested to run this country without screwing up. But instead of getting depressed and saying "our country is going to the dogs" we can cultivate a kinder abuser because in the end, someone, somewhere, will abuse power.
I'd probably write on but I probably should stop here. I hope that those who've believed in their own supremacy and those who've been beaten into believing in their inferiority can truly embrace the status quo and diligently give future generations a real chance at healing.
