Sometimes it takes a Thabo Bester to show us SA isn’t all bad

Before we start, let’s just understand that nobody is here to justify what Thabo did, which is exactly the point!

What other set of circumstances could possibly lead to all of South African Twitter calling for Glynnis Breytenbach to be president? For that matter, what set of circumstances could be cause for South African Twitter to agree on anything.

It turns out, it takes a horrible convict escaping from prison.

Lessons to learn from it all

Obviously, it would have been ideal if the crimes weren’t committed in the first place, but they were and the most difficult thing about that is stomaching that we have to accept that.

This is South Africa, after all, and we have a police minister who believes that silence is a strategy.

Also Read: JICS’ Edwin Cameron ‘feels complicit in the insufficient response’ on Thabo Bester

What this has taught us about South Africa and South Africa’s abilities is, however, incredibly promising.

I know. I know. We should be embarrassed that we let a fugitive escape, but it happens everywhere.

Sure, we need to do more about it but from Annanias Mathe to Bonga Ntuli, we recaptured them. Even Churchill escaped from Boer capture back in 1899.

In the last ten years we’ve seen several high-profile escapes in the USA, Mexico, Israel, Syria, India, Canada and the UK. Japan couldn’t even detect a CEO in a box on the way to Lebanon via Turkey. It happens. Prisoners escape. More needs to be done. Sure.

What happens after the prisoner escapes is what I believe is more telling of the country, and South Africa eventually did well.

In the time since we learned of the escape, there was a mission to a foreign country, fugitive and suspect were nabbed, Parliament held a very well publicised and intense hearing, and the private sector was shown to be not as amazing as it purports to be.

Also Read: Who is G4S, the company that runs the Mangaung Correctional Centre?

The good things to come out of the escape

All of South Africa was forced to introspect, and are doing so! I dare say, we’re doing it well.

We can anticipate a review of prison systems and a review of private sector integration with state services. We can even anticipate a review of costs.

We’ll probably even be looking at our foreign policy and treaties with various states and if dreams really do come true, it could lead to more appetite to get on a plan and fetch some fugitive brothers from somewhere.

What other country with escapees can say they’ve done that and done it successfully?

Sure, Cele would have loved to brush it under the carpet, but the fact that he couldn’t, or rather wasn’t allowed to, tells us more about South Africa than we realise, even if it did take a year to come to light.

Once we accept that prison escapes happen, and will likely keep happening no matter how hard we try, we can turn our attention to two more important questions: how frequently and what do we do after?

From where I’m sitting, I’m as disgusted as most of you that this elaborate plan was allowed to manifest.

What I’m delighted about is that it took such an elaborate plan to escape, and wasn’t as simple and embarrassing as a Mexican tunnel. What we should be proud of is that, by whatever the means, the executive was not allowed to just shrug their shoulders.

South Africans are right to be embarrassed that a fugitive escaped. We just cannot allow ourselves to wallow in the embarrassment without acknowledging the far greater realisation that we didn’t let ineptitude flourish and we nabbed the dude again.

Also Read: Government knew Thabo Bester had escaped, but did nothing

Moreover, we showed the world that we’re not a pushover state for foreign companies to drain our coffers and not face accountability.

For all of that, I think that this is one of the rather rare instances where South Africa can say, on the whole, we got something right. More so than many other nations who may be laughing at us publicly, but in the knowledge that they’re getting away with playing the Cele silence strategy.