Eye for an eye leaves us all blind

The meting out of mob justice in Zandspruit and the loss of life as a result is more than just the public taking law into their own hands.

This is the citizens saying that crime has taken the country hostage. It’s saying SA has lost faith in the men and women in blue and all the laws that govern them.

It’s saying when crime remains uncontained, there are those who are brave, lawless enough, to take the law into their own hands… I have always been against the death penalty.

The justice department in South Africa, no matter how beautiful its laws on paper, is highly flawed. We have seen men and women lose their freedom because the arm of the law overreaches. Wrong people are incarcerated, some languish in jail cells and plead their innocence for years.

We know of dockets that suddenly grow legs and the ones who ought to be permanent residents of the corrections department walk away, all because brown envelopes were exchanged in the right corners by those that believe that justice is for sale.

We have seen the masterminds that have fuelled the bloodshed in gang-ridden areas like the Western Cape and Eldorado Park. Men from foreign lands like Radovan Krejčíř find their hiding place in South Africa, with members of the police acting as their foot soldiers as they perpetuate their crime sprees.

Some parts of SA are no-go areas because we fear we may be caught in hail of bullets amid turf wars – and when the countrymen decide enough is enough, that outrage leads to mob justice.

The police need to introspect and root out the ones that leave the country vulnerable… The loss of life in Zandspruit saddens me, whether the victim was guilty or not. We should all be guaranteed the right to prove our innocence.

Zandspruit speaks of the lack of humanity that has crept into our law-abiding society, which now feels the only way to find justice is by turning to violence.

Have we become the very people we need protection from? Our leadership needs to step in before we become a nation of blind people who believe in an eye for an eye.