Musings of a Mad Sub

And yet, despite the atrocious murder and rape statistics, not to mention aggravated robbery statistics, little concrete action seems to be taking place.

For starters, our president has appointed a former banker as the head of the police. It is beyond ludicrous to think a person with zero practical, or theoretical, knowledge of policing could effectively tackle crime in our country.

But she is not alone. Our country has also (previously) promoted a transport-industry person to the position of running our police force.

This is the equivalent of someone putting me into the position of chief of surgery in a hospital, and makes about as much sense. Of course, heaven forbid I should ever pick up a scalpel.

And this is the very situation we find ourselves in. Our police force is being led by people with zero knowledge of policing. This is not to say the candidates have no skills, it simply means the candidates’ skills lie in other areas.

One would think it more logical to promote a banker to the position of, say, head of the SA Reserve Bank. Unfortunately, it would seem logic is a luxury in short supply for our president.

Clearly too much money was spent on Nkandla and there was no change for even a small purchase of logic.

Once you wade through the tons of crap spewed forth about the current crime situation in South Africa, you will come to the same conclusion I have – the ‘Powers that be’ simply have no clue how to tackle the situation.

Sure, deploying the SANDF made great headlines and wonderful photo-opportunities for us in the media, but it is, ultimately, a short-term solution to a long-term problem.

But then again, how on Earth can we, the people, hope for effective solutions to serious problems when nearly every single state-run company/entity is facing massive financial trouble?

SAA, the Post Office, Eskom, Transnet, the SABC are all facing massive challenges, with little to no hope of saving these entities without asking us, the tax-payer, to bail them out – again.

I’ve lost track of how many times our taxes have bailed out SAA.

This is what happens when cadre deployment trumps skill and knowledge.

The current head of the SAPS should, surely, be a person who has worked their way through the ranks of the police force. Someone who has, at the very least, 20 years of experience. Hell, I think even a person with 10 years of experience would do right now.

Of course, it certainly has done no good that a former top cop and head of Interpol was sentenced to prison for corrupt relationships with criminals.

And yet we, the voting masses of this country, sit and wonder why our police force simply cannot tackle the crime in our country – our men and women in blue simply do not have any role-models leading the department.

Of great concern for me is that people simply fail to realise what our crime statistics mean. Our murder rate is pretty close to that of a country engaged in war. In fact, I recently read that more people are being killed in South Africa every month than in Iraq – a country currently engaged in a conflict against ISIS.

But dig a bit deeper now. If we are facing a murder/crime rate akin to a warzone, what are our police officers facing? These are not soldiers, yet they are facing the same risks as deployed soldiers.

What (effective) provisions do we have for handling police officers who suffer from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)? I can tell you that while all the correct words are spoken by department heads in the SAPS, many officers simply cannot be treated effectively for PTSD – because there are not enough police officers deployed to allow one or more officers to take extended leave and overcome the effects of PTSD.

Recent studies have shown that if left untreated, or undiagnosed, PTSD can have disastrous consequences for the sufferer. In many cases marriages fall apart and suicides take place. Sometimes the sufferer takes the life of someone else first, usually someone close to him/her, before taking their own life.

Oh, wait, isn’t this something we see several times a year in our country?

Furthermore, if our police officers are facing warzone conditions, it surely stands to logic that we, the populace, are living in warzone conditions. As a generalisation, we are all tense, wound-up and short-tempered. Mainly because we simply hope to either make it home alive, or wake up in the morning without having someone in your home with a gun to your head.

This also means that a huge number of the population is likewise, also suffering from PTSD. While some are able to identify this and go for counselling, many do not.

Living in such conditions cannot be a good thing. We are living in fear, and eventually, fear begins to undermine and corrode any hope of true nation-building. We become distrustful of all people, except a few close friends and family. We lose sight of our humanity.

This is one of the biggest consequences facing civilians living in conflict zones across the world. You become desensitised to the violence. Violence becomes the new ‘reality’, and we are all affected.

How many times has a friend or family member come to you and said, “I was hijacked/robbed/burgled/smash-and-grabbed.”

And our reply is, “Well, thank God you are still alive.”

We now focus more on surviving the event, than being outraged that the event even took place. This is just one example of being desensitised.

It is time we, the voting people of this country, flexed our muscles and show that we are sick and tired of this. South Africa is rapidly tearing itself apart at the seams, and unless the voting masses stand up and get themselves heard, nothing will change. And our country will descend into a new form of conflict – a low-level insurgency, where the terrorist is not ideologically driven, but rather driven by greed and a simple urge to take what is yours.