Going south. Bunch of news stories from South Africa that caught my attention over the last days and hours.
Last week the public sector was on strike in the rainbow nation. So no trash collection, municipal offices closed, public hospital workers absent,... The state employees demanded a 15% salary rise. That’s double the current inflation rate of South Africa. And that amidst the country’s first economic recession in 17 years. Sometimes you wonder if the trade unions live on another planet. Do they have any sense of economics? Or is their hatred for the world economic system keeping them deaf, dumb and blind on factual issues. Get real folks! Or maybe, as sadly too often around the globe, the unions are not fighting for the rights of their members, but for political power towards the governing elite. In South Africa’s case that is certainly on the cards as the trade unions helped heavily bringing current President Jacob Zuma to power. And now it’s payback time. Recession or no recession.
And sometimes strikers are seriously out of line. Last Friday striking fire fighters refused to attend to a crash scene and cut a badly injured woman and the body of her husband from a car wreck. In the same accident two babies died. I mean that’s criminal! In the end fire fighters from a nearby power plant had to come to the rescue. Can these striking fire fighters look themselves in the mirror in the morning? Or is the ugliness of their behaviour blinding them? Not worth to be in such a job!
That attitude is maybe a reflection of a larger “cancer”.
The new national police commissioner of South Africa has called to stop the regular publication of crime statistics. I mean, get real. Something to hide perhaps? In a country like South Africa with unbelievable high crime rates it has the smell of rot if the new, gung-ho chief cop doesn’t want the public to know if the state’s crime fighting actions are having any effect or not. Maybe the new sheriff needs to learn the basic principle of holding public office. He is there to serve the people and thus the people have the right to know if the cops or making any progress in tackling South Africa’s sky high crime pest. The streets of the rainbow nation are soaked in blood.
A new, private study last month showed that house robberies went up by 13% in 1 year. That in 2008 there were 15000 house robberies in South Africa. Yes you are reading well. 15000 House robberies in 1 year in a nation of 50 million citizens. And often robberies go hand in hand with the use of violent force. The same study stated that a third of the house robbers had committed murder or would not hesitate to kill. And a mind-blowing 97% of the robbers are armed. And kick this. The average robber commits 103 robberies over an average period of 7 years before being caught. No surprise then that South Africa’s conviction rate for house robberies is just under 8%. Compare that to the US where it stands at 53%.
And these are just some statistics regarding house robberies. Add to that car jackings, straight forward murders, rapes, white collar crime,... and South Africa is gangster paradise. In fact gangsters, in the traditional, semi-romantic meaning of the word have some rules and ethics. That is often not the case in South Africa’s brutal crime reality. Call it thugs paradise!
And then the new cop-in-charge, all dressed out in an Italian suit, wants to keep the crime figures hidden from the people he is supposed to serve and protect. Nonsense. It smells of political spin. How best to protect the image of his friend and boss, President Zuma? It’s criminal!
And to explain his wacko policy, the new police chief goes on the radio to say that statistics give criminals the advantage. You’re kidding, right?! And he even adds that releasing crime statistics can be used by political opponents. So he admits he is protecting the political image of his boss. Right? It’s nuts and very disrespectful to the people of South Africa who have to live within this extreme violent society.
Staying with South Africa’s police force, but on a much lighter note. A commanding police officer in a station on the eastern edge of the country’s largest metropolis Johannesburg, has moved into his office. Yes indeed, he now lives in his office in his police station. And his fellow cops are every morning witnessing their boss washing up in the station’s kitchen. And it is reported that sometimes he gives morning briefings in his pyjamas and orders his staff to go and get him coffee. I mean the commanding police officer needs his morning coffee to get the day started and fight all those criminals out there. Right? And then you wonder why the trust in South Africa’s men in blue have fallen to all time lows amidst the population. I wonder if his pyjamas are blue?
Staying in Africa but moving north of the equator. And without doubt a much more serious topic than the police-resident. A mad story. A story with a medieval feel to it, but unfortunately very real and very 2009.
A female journalist in Sudan is facing 40 whip lashes for wearing trousers instead of a skirt. Slow down. Read again. A women is about to get lashed (by a man who probably will enjoy it) because she was having trousers on? I mean, pinch me. This is mad. Barbaric. Medieval. Inhuman. The police in Sudan’s capital Khartoum had arrested 30-year old Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein because they judged that wearing trousers was “indecent”. Sudan has a law that states that anyone wearing indecent clothing violates public morality. The 21st century maybe hasn’t reached Sudan yet.
The even more madly amazing fact is that female police and army members in Sudan are wearing trousers as part of their official uniform. Yes indeed! How paradox is that?! Just straight forward crap. 100% Bollocks. Going around preaching some religious morality on the streets of the capital, but then breaking your own morality in your own official institutions. Two faced! Anyway, it has nothing to do with any morality or social standards. It’s abuse of power towards women. It’s just rot. Religious freaks of all kinds always make me vomit in disgust.
Throw out. Listening to the new tunes by London ska-heroes Madness. A double album called “The liberty of Norton Folgate”. These funny lads have been around for more than 30 years. It’s since 1999 that Madness had not released new songs. And it’s the original line-up that appears here back together. They have moved on to pop-with-a-touch-of-ska, but still some fine tunes here and there. Moments of nostalgia.
C-Ya
collateral – August 2009
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