The reason SA fails in so much that it attempts to achieve is because we do not value human life in this country.
For three decades we have been mentioned among the murder capitals of the world, and yet the way we go on with our lives suggests we do not care that no man, woman or child is safe in Langa or Khayelitsha, or anywhere in our country.
Our leaders, in their flashing blue light convoys, are unfeeling, uncaring and blind to the plight of those who face danger with every step that they take out of their home.
If you are a government that believes that the people who vote for you are nothing, that their lives mean nothing and are not worth protecting and preserving, then you will not serve them with diligence and excellence.
You will fail them every time while you go on a selfish looting spree with an eye to fleeing when you have stolen what you think is enough.
In October last year, I received a press release by the DA about child rape in SA.
I read it slowly and with a growing horror. I have thought about it almost every day since then, and I continue to wonder: who is doing anything about this?
The press release read in parts:
“The DA is sounding the alarm on SA’s escalating child rape crisis, revealing shocking statistics that highlight a systemic failure to protect vulnerable children...
“The DA’s call to action comes amid alarming statistics revealed through a DA parliamentary question showing between the financial years of 2018/2019 and 2023/2024, 106,001 rape cases involving children were reported.
“On average, this equals approximately 1,472 child rape cases per month, or to roughly 48 rape cases per day.
“With 22,722 sexual assault cases reported over the same period, that equates to an average of 316 child sexual assault cases per month, or roughly 10 cases per day.
“While these statistics are shocking not all rapes are reported, pointing to an even greater crisis than the numbers alone indicate.”
Stop and read that again: 106,000 rape cases involving children in six years. Few, if any, war zones record such awful numbers.
The same DA release pointed out that though 18,108 rape cases involving child victims were reported to the SA Police Service in 2022/2023, “only 10,435 arrests were made, and an even smaller fraction of 471 child rape cases were enrolled for trial by the National Prosecuting Authority during the same period”.
Anywhere else in the world there would be riots in the streets about this. In SA, this is normal. Normal.
What kind of adults will these children turn out to be? Many now grow up with their rapists living in and walking the streets in their neighbourhoods.
Over the past two months, many of us have watched as bodies and barely-alive human beings have emerged from the bowels of Stilfontein mine in the North West.
As the rescue operation has wound down, the death toll reached 87.
Does anyone care that 87 human lives have been snuffed out?
Or are we happy that, as the minister in the presidency said, we have achieved our goal to “smoke them out”?
The minister will go on with her life. No-one will be held to account for the deaths of those people who were underground.
Who cares about them? Their lives don’t matter.
They are poor. They are nothing in the eyes of our leaders.
In July 2021, at least 354 people died in riots in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng following the imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma.
We now enter yet another year in which the instigators of those riots are still unknown to us, the citizens of this country, and in which the families of the many who died have received no justice.
If we cannot bring the instigators to book, then what are we saying about the worth, the meaning, of those who were killed?
They mean nothing, they have no value and no-one will care about what happens to those who cut their lives short.
If the powers that be really cared for us and for our future, they would have been relentless in doing one key thing: turning our institutions of accountability into efficient, honourable, non-partisan machines led by people of integrity and guided by our great constitution.
Instead, the police are riddled with corruption, the NPA and other similar institutions have been weakened by ruling party politicians for 30 years, and so-called leaders exist merely to get access to government loot.
If our politicians — and by that I mean the ANC, which has governed for 30 years — valued the lives of our people, they would have built up and entrenched these institutions and a culture of excellence a long time ago.
They have failed. Which means I should have started this column with honesty and stated clearly: The ANC does not value the lives of ordinary South Africans.
No real care for human life in SA
Columnist
Image: Phillip Nothnagel/Daily Dispatch
The reason SA fails in so much that it attempts to achieve is because we do not value human life in this country.
For three decades we have been mentioned among the murder capitals of the world, and yet the way we go on with our lives suggests we do not care that no man, woman or child is safe in Langa or Khayelitsha, or anywhere in our country.
Our leaders, in their flashing blue light convoys, are unfeeling, uncaring and blind to the plight of those who face danger with every step that they take out of their home.
If you are a government that believes that the people who vote for you are nothing, that their lives mean nothing and are not worth protecting and preserving, then you will not serve them with diligence and excellence.
You will fail them every time while you go on a selfish looting spree with an eye to fleeing when you have stolen what you think is enough.
In October last year, I received a press release by the DA about child rape in SA.
I read it slowly and with a growing horror. I have thought about it almost every day since then, and I continue to wonder: who is doing anything about this?
The press release read in parts:
“The DA is sounding the alarm on SA’s escalating child rape crisis, revealing shocking statistics that highlight a systemic failure to protect vulnerable children...
“The DA’s call to action comes amid alarming statistics revealed through a DA parliamentary question showing between the financial years of 2018/2019 and 2023/2024, 106,001 rape cases involving children were reported.
“On average, this equals approximately 1,472 child rape cases per month, or to roughly 48 rape cases per day.
“With 22,722 sexual assault cases reported over the same period, that equates to an average of 316 child sexual assault cases per month, or roughly 10 cases per day.
“While these statistics are shocking not all rapes are reported, pointing to an even greater crisis than the numbers alone indicate.”
Stop and read that again: 106,000 rape cases involving children in six years. Few, if any, war zones record such awful numbers.
The same DA release pointed out that though 18,108 rape cases involving child victims were reported to the SA Police Service in 2022/2023, “only 10,435 arrests were made, and an even smaller fraction of 471 child rape cases were enrolled for trial by the National Prosecuting Authority during the same period”.
Anywhere else in the world there would be riots in the streets about this. In SA, this is normal. Normal.
What kind of adults will these children turn out to be? Many now grow up with their rapists living in and walking the streets in their neighbourhoods.
Over the past two months, many of us have watched as bodies and barely-alive human beings have emerged from the bowels of Stilfontein mine in the North West.
As the rescue operation has wound down, the death toll reached 87.
Does anyone care that 87 human lives have been snuffed out?
Or are we happy that, as the minister in the presidency said, we have achieved our goal to “smoke them out”?
The minister will go on with her life. No-one will be held to account for the deaths of those people who were underground.
Who cares about them? Their lives don’t matter.
They are poor. They are nothing in the eyes of our leaders.
In July 2021, at least 354 people died in riots in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng following the imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma.
We now enter yet another year in which the instigators of those riots are still unknown to us, the citizens of this country, and in which the families of the many who died have received no justice.
If we cannot bring the instigators to book, then what are we saying about the worth, the meaning, of those who were killed?
They mean nothing, they have no value and no-one will care about what happens to those who cut their lives short.
If the powers that be really cared for us and for our future, they would have been relentless in doing one key thing: turning our institutions of accountability into efficient, honourable, non-partisan machines led by people of integrity and guided by our great constitution.
Instead, the police are riddled with corruption, the NPA and other similar institutions have been weakened by ruling party politicians for 30 years, and so-called leaders exist merely to get access to government loot.
If our politicians — and by that I mean the ANC, which has governed for 30 years — valued the lives of our people, they would have built up and entrenched these institutions and a culture of excellence a long time ago.
They have failed. Which means I should have started this column with honesty and stated clearly: The ANC does not value the lives of ordinary South Africans.
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