Let’s get something clear right from the start.
Organised crime is not a problem endemic only to Bedfordview. It is a world-wide problem, one that challenges police forces around the globe. Why do you think there are police units like Interpol?
The fact the some alleged criminals may (or may not) have settled in Bedfordview means very little, in the greater scheme of things. Organised crime syndicates will set up almost anywhere they feel their activities will go unnoticed. This has nothing to do with the people who call that particular suburb home. These criminals are actually highly intelligent. They travel around looking for areas they will be able to blend into, where their flashy cars and clothing will appear normal.
The sad part is that the other 99.9 percent of residents who are hard-working, tax paying citizens are tarnished with the same brush. Not really fair to them, is it?
To be quite honest, a bigger concern for me is the rhino-poaching on a daily basis. The last figures put the numbers at over 500 poached this year alone. That is more than one every day. Soon, we will be saying “Come to South Africa, home of the big four”.
Rhino poaching is also part of an organised crime syndicate, a global one at that. But I guess it is easy to dismiss the plight of the rhino when it seems to happen ‘so far away’.
I don’t believe we should forget about the problems occurring in Bedford, I mean a man was shot in his bed next to his wife. Regardless of how you feel about the man, that is pretty cold-blooded.
Crime is a problem throughout South Africa, and I think the bigger question that should be asked is why are organised crime syndicates loving the South African landscape so much? I don’t believe this has anything to do with the ‘New South Africa’, as criminal syndicates are as old as time itself, but there are certain recent developments which are cause for concern.
More and more countries are demanding visas from South Africans hoping to travel abroad, as they feel the risk of fraudulent visas is too great. I heard from a well-placed chap who said the SA passport is one of the easiest to copy. I don’t know how true this is, but he was a well-placed chap at an embassy.
What is there about South Africa that is calling to these criminals? I think the time has come for some introspective evaluation on the part of all South Africans, from the ordinary man-on-the-street, all the way up to the president. Why are these chaps coming to South Africa?
Look at the case of that woman dubbed the ‘White Widow”. The allegations that a terrorist obtained an SA passport are quite disturbing. So I think, while the issue in Bedfordview is serious, it is not the biggest fish we have to fry in our country.
There was a time in the great USA where police officers armed themselves with machine guns to try take down the gangs of Al Capone and the likes. Every country in the world suffers from organised crime. Remember the Italian mafia? They caused big problems (and still are) in the USA and Italy.
For a time the headlines will focus on Bedfordview and the criminal element present, along with their actions, but soon there will be bigger, more pressing stories which will steal the limelight away from the suburb.
Perhaps we should realise that crime affects one and all in South Africa, regardless of your race, ethnicity or religion. Perhaps the time has come where we should start taking back our suburbs from the criminals. I mean, why should we, the tax paying, law abiding citizens, have to barricade ourselves behind iron and steel bars? Why should have armed response for security? Surely it should be the criminals barricading themselves, to protect themselves from us, the law-abiding people and the police who defend us? Perhaps the fear of the law needs to be instilled into these folks and not the rest of us who just try to live our lives on the right side of the law.
