The sad and tragic story of 59-year-old Masilo Mazibuko of Motloung Section in Katlehong has once again proved that vigilantism and kangaroo courts are the worst forms of injustice.
All too often, they lead to the death of victims and the wanton destruction of their property.
Even worse, those whose job it is to be custodians of the country’s justice system often choose to turn a blind eye when this brutal and savage form of ‘mob justice’ is meted out, often against innocent members of the community.
Evidence gathered by Kathorus MAIL (See story on page 4) from Masilo Mazibuko, and confirmed by his friend and his 17-year-old teenage son who accompanied him to the police station where he had gone to seek refuge from his attackers that day, revealed how he was dealt a cruel blow and his family destroyed.
Firstly, he was accused of a crime he did not commit. And then, when he tried to seek refuge, was chased away at the local police station. He was told to go back to the same enraged mob that was baying for his blood.
This is after they had set his home on fire, causing his terrified children to flee in fear for their lives.
And for almost two years, without a home to call his own and his children scattered without their father, he was forced to live like a homeless recluse under a bridge and in bushes close to the Alberton CBD.
Sadly, the people he once called his neighbours in Motloung Section, Katlehong, watched his once beautiful five-bedroom house transformed into a ravaged shell, while his children no longer had a place they could call home.
Mazibuko is not the first person to fall victim to ‘mob justice’ after being accused by communities of a crime he did not commit. He is also not the first person to have his property vandalised and destroyed by neighbours in whose midst he had once lived happily.
And the fact of the matter is neither will he be the last.
The story of Mazibuko is about to take a turn for the better, with a few friends and community leaders deciding to take another look at the tragic events that turned his life upside down and left him homeless.
A lone crusader and activist in the community is determined to see justice done.
To achieve this, some of the community members have launched a crusade that hopefully will finally see justice in the case of Mazibuko prevail, and those responsible for his tragic experience pay for their irresponsible and unjust behaviour against an innocent man and his family.
As individuals and communities, we need to stand up and condemn vigilantism and mob justice because none of us knows what the future holds. Just as much as this tragedy has happened to Mazibuko, there is no guarantee that it could one day not happen to one of us.
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We are reaping what we sow in our schools with by the television programme Yizo-Yizo .
Substance abuse, violence, sex and other forms of social ills displayed by learners at our schools today can be linked and traced back to what we thought was a depiction of real life experienced by learners at our schools at the time.
Personally, I did not agree then with that accession, because like thousands of other concerned parents at the time, what we were actually shown as entertainment with series like Yizo-Yizo was nothing more than a prediction of the future and the current social disaster that is playing itself out at our schools today.
Without a doubt, our schools have become dens of iniquity and anti-social hubs where young scholars are displaying the fruits of what we were sowing with TV series like Yizo-Yizo and other destructive TV dramas.
There is no doubt that we are reaping the fruits of what our television producers thought was hard-core evidence of ill-discipline and anti-social violence that is wreaking havoc in both the primary and secondary learning corridors at our schools right now.
And for the entire contingent of high-ranking SAPS, EMPD, including members of the Gauteng Legislature and the CPF to converge at a local high school in a bid to address issues of behavioural patens of other anti-social tendencies among learners, is indeed a serious indictment on our society and our choices and a gross insult to the astute leader after whom the high school is named after.
What is happening right now at the OR Tambo High School is a shameful disgrace that has become part of the learning process at just about every secondary and high school in many parts of the country today.
The question remains, what exactly did Yozo-Yizo teach our children about morality, good behaviour and self-respect?
What moral lessons can we, as a nation, claim to have learnt from these anti-social and morally depraved TV series that have left our future leaders without dignity, self-love and respect?
Nothing, but self-destruction, drugs, alcohol, teenage pregnancies, violence and self-hate!
