When I started writing my column, the first for the year, I initially had a completely different approach.
It was with a sense of pride that I read about the Edenvale mother who fought back against her hijackers – and prevailed. Good for you ma’am.
I was going to continue on, extolling her actions, and praising her for what she did. I was going to encourage more people to do the same.
Unfortunately, I then came across another news article, about some house-robbery victims in Hazyview.
The details of the case are horrendous, shocking and disgusting.
In short, two women were gang raped. One was a 16-year-old teenager. The other was a 31-year-old mother. These victims are unrelated to each other, except through the violent trauma each faced and endured. The teenager was raped while her mother, who was mourning the loss of her husband, was forced to listen. The 31 year old was raped in the bathroom, while her husband had to listen.
Due to the rules of publishing I cannot honestly reflect my true thoughts on this.
Suffice it to say, I felt the need for a strong drink. Or two.
I cannot even begin to comprehend the trauma these families have gone through – most especially the victims.
Now, more than ever, I feel it is a moral imperative for the citizens of this country to fight back.
Where in the hell did our country go so wrong? Where the hell did we become so accustomed to this depraved violence? And why the hell has our government not instituted harsher laws for criminals?
Currently our government wants to criminalise racism. All well and good, but why the heck has there not been such rapid action regarding our woefully inadequate punishment for convicted rapists?
What is going through our illustrious ministers’ minds?! I am forced to make the following statement: our politicians – all of them – don’t give two hoots about the victims of crime in this country.
No one, not a single political party, has come forward in parliament and made a big deal (akin to the Nkandla scandal) about rape in this country. Mere lip-service is paid.
Not a single political party has stood up and demanded harsher punishment for rapists.
Our political parties fight about race, about billboards, about corruption and nepotism.
There have been massive disruptions in parliament regarding Nkandla and getting our president to ‘pay back the money’, but no one – NO ONE – has done the same for the countless victims of rape in South Africa. And by no one, I am referring to political party representatives in parliament.
What about our murder rate? We hear lip-service when the crime stats are released, but after that? Nothing. Not a single bloody peep.
No, instead, we the voting masses who give these useless sods the political power they so desperately want and cling to, are forced to live in fear. Forced to live with the trauma. Forced to contemplate why we even live in this country every single day.
We do not have the luxury of personal bodyguards and blue-light brigades when we travel on the roads, or sleep in our homes at night.
Our homes feature more security than prison cells. Think about that for a second. If not more than prison cells, then at the very least, the same. Our properties are surrounded by high walls, electric fences and/or razor wire. We have external alarm beams, security gates and internal beams. We have magnets on doors and windows so that if these are opened, the alarm goes off.
22 years into freedom and we live in less freedom than ever before.
We are not free. We are prisoners in our own homes.
Is this freedom? Living in constant bloody fear? Watching television with a firearm strapped to me? Making sure my alarm system is checked regularly? Making sure the razor wire is secured on the wall? Making sure my security gates are made of thick steel?
Is this what Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk envisaged for South Africa all those years ago?
If the price of my vote is to live in peace and safety, take it.
If the price of my vote spares others from being gang raped and murdered – shove my vote. I don’t want it if this is what my vote gets me.
My vote does not protect me.
My vote will not save me when criminals attack.
My vote will not heal the pain those victims are still suffering.
The rulers of this country can take my vote and shove it. I’m sick of the excuses.
And I suspect I am not the only one.
