Thabo Bester: SA’s absent father problem has dangerous consequences

The Thabo Bester saga has gripped South Africa and taking centre stage now is the roles of fathers in the lives of their children.

Previously I wrote about Zilile Sekeleni, the father of Dr. Nandipha Magudumana. A topic of discussion in the background has been the paternal ethnicity of Thabo Bester. Bester’s father is alleged to have been a rapist and is now a shopkeeper.

Now, with the identification of Katlego Bereng’s body, and his father being vocal on social media and in the news, we can discuss the re-emergence of parents who for years have neglected their responsibility to their children.

As soon as Bereng’s body was identified, my curiosity led me to the father’s Twitter account; I mean he was now speaking through this platform. I scoured his account and found no request for assistance to locate his son for months. Fast forward to his son’s missing body being attached to the most talked about escape in the history of the country, and this man is not only vocal, but audacious in his speech. He even went as far as saying he wants to write a book.

When has he fetched his son’s spirit, when has he mourned, when has he taken in the trauma his grandchildren have, and are about to experience? Yet, in his readiness to talk, he has already titled his book, ‘The Gap’.

The father of Thabo Bester has also become a talking point. At first, he was alleged to be an unknown rapist, but then those “in the know” claimed this may not be the case. They alleged Bester was conceived by two people who knew each other. One whose mother stepped in when she stepped out, the other, who blue-ticked the existence of a child.

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In the absence of both a mother and father, who clearly had the means to provide but didn’t, a child went off course as he tried to navigate through life, resulting in a conman who could almost deplete our available and collective exclaims of shock. Put all three of these fathers together. A father to Magudumana, who it seems corrected with limits. A father who only parented when the stage is set before him. Then, a father who opted out and never looked back. This set the landscape for a predator to be released in the country.

This is just a reminder of what has been said for years. Parents need to be active in the lives of their children. They need to steer them in a direction and protect them as far as possible.

While Bereng’s father may not have been able to prevent Katlego’s death, a more concerted effort to find his son would have raised alarms on his missing body earlier.

I am a mother pleading to fathers, when children are conceived, their safety and lives take centre stage. The state of fatherless children has become a norm, and if we ever needed a case in point that reminds us of these dangers, Thabo Bester has provided this lesson to us – albeit not free of charge!

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