Dear Bheki: Calling you a ‘garden boy’ would be an insult to gardeners

Dear Bheki, from your shoot to kill days to kill days to that IFP fiasco back in 2009, and now your shut up manner of dismissal, one day, we need to talk about your aggression.

Today, however, I want to question your performance in the police.

You had plenty of time since JZ took your commissioner title away and sent you fishing a little later on, and one would have hoped you’d spent some time reflecting on how to make the police more effective.

I’m curious to know, are the police more effective with you as minister? I’m asking like this because I know it’s cool to shout down criticism when you get a chance, play some sort of warped race card, and then ignore the actual substance of the criticism.

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Your party has long claimed that it has a good story to tell. Once upon a time, Thabo Mbeki tried to convince us that there was no crime problem in South Africa.

A national publication and a bank even wanted to survey the population to find out if public sentiment reconciled with the then president’s. After clandestine governmental moves in the shadows, somehow that survey never happened.

I mean, it’s easy to tell a good story if the author intended it to be filed in the fiction section of the poorly stocked public library. Your method, at least, is more direct. So, let’s talk about it.

Would a “garden boy” be the one to address regarding critical crime statistics in South Africa, with a view to getting an accountable answer? Probably not, though I understand you’re upset at the manner you were questioned.

Let’s take a less selfish view of the matter.

You feel hard done by for being treated like a “garden boy”, whatever that means. It is obviously understandable that it would be upsetting that somebody would EFF you in the middle of something to interject a criticism, especially when that criticism is valid.

You may feel like you were treated like a “garden boy” and that may be an issue to you, but you know who couldn’t give a damn about how you feel? The women who live in fear that they may be next.

It’s not good enough that you make a stale statement telling men to leave women in miniskirts alone. Anybody with a podcast can do that. You have actual power to command to the manner of effective policing in the country and make it safer.

What has actually been done? The statistics don’t tell a good story, and those are only the statistics that we know about. I’m sure many people, like myself, have found reporting a crime to be painful and worthless.

The people who spend thousands on private security because your crew are disappointing. The car manufacturers who have to use trucks because your trains aren’t safe. Your people who can’t afford any security and simply find satisfaction in not being been robbed for a few weeks.

The children who fear the walk to school lest they be mugged, assaulted or trafficked.

Oh, and before we forget, a whole country who has to pay the price of inflation and insurance because you lot couldn’t do much more than check KZN burn in riots.

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None of these people could care less that you feel like some dude treated you like a “garden boy”.

Your dismissal of the complaint isn’t as easy as that, because as police minister and all that, you’re kinda supposed to make us feel like we’re safe. The thing is, if we don’t feel safe and you don’t seem to care, because you are upset at being treated like a “garden boy”?

Yes, it’s not cool to be called out by some white dude in a condescending and frontal way. Perhaps one should reflect on how it could have been avoided in the first place.

Perhaps the answer doesn’t lie in turning a complaint into an ad hominem remark and dismissing it as such. Perhaps the answer is to avoid giving people a reason to complain in the first place.

If you think the well-off white dude is desperate to have his voice heard, spare a thought for all those who make up each statistic.

If the “garden boy” cry is you projecting a desire, I think there’s an international opportunity in Scranton, PA, at an office park where you could possibly apply to be the assistant to the “garden boy”.

If not, South Africa needs real leadership in policing.

Shutting people up because they’re not nice to you is doesn’t solve any issues that really need solving and not even the biggest fedora is going mask the fact that you aren’t living up to the country’s expectations for the police to keep us safe.