Daxk is back with a belter of a comment that sums up many SA expat’s feelings perfectly. Perhaps.
Aaah yes,6K,I really dont understand what the fuss is about,its been going on for about a week and they’ve only killed about 25,going back to the famous Crime Blog post,and the normal 50 murdered per day on average,its hardly going to make a blip on the figures,is’nt it?
Besides, the police services have been saying for years that its the illegal Mocambican and Zimbabwean immigrants who are responsible for the Hi-Jackings and armed home invasions, not to mention the daily cash in transit robberies.
will be interesting to see wether there has been a decrease over this period.
Hate to say it,but its only been noticed because its all on Camera.
Ho Hum! Another day in Paradise.
When responding to something like this, I often find it difficult to know where to start. Then I remember Maria’s advice – “Start at the very beginning – a very good place to start”.
So maybe we should start with the fact that Daxk is right in the thick of the action, in Ireland. And no – that’s not the name of a township just outside Jo’burg, it’s the place 11,000kms away where they make Guinness and film the pisspoor Ballykissangel.
Moving on from that shock revelation, I’m assuming that the “famous Crime Blog post” Daxk refers to is the BSACP, which was voted as the second best post written on any South African blog in the whole of 2007. (Just behind one about buying condoms, but that’s not important right now.) Daxk doesn’t agree with the sentiment of that post, despite the fact that it quite clearly states:
South Africa has a big problem with crime… The stats show that South Africa remains one of the most violent societies on earth – the figures are shocking.
I don’t know. Maybe I should have made it a bit more melodramatic.
Daxk goes on to say that because the murder rate in South Africa is so high, we shouldn’t really be bothered about this minor problem – “they’ve only killed about 25”. Perhaps Daxk would call that attitude “desensitization”. Most others would choose “cold”, “unfeeling” or “callous”.
And then, the pièce de résistance – the affirmation that illegal immigrants (those from Mozambique and Zimbabwe, anyway) are responsible for armed home invasions, hijackings and cash-in-transit robberies – and a suggestion that because of the xenophobic violence against foreign nationals, the numbers of these crimes may have decreased over the last week. This would be laughable, if it wasn’t quite so inaccurate, irrelevant and downright sick.
The mobs roaming informal settlements in Gauteng at the moment are targeting anyone suspected of being foreign – legal, illegal, men, women, children. Several deaths have been South African nationals who were mistaken for foreign nationals. The excellent Special Assignment on SABC3 devoted their whole show to the issue yesterday evening – including interviews with the families of the victims of the gangs’ “mistakes”, something you may have seen if you weren’t in Ireland. Instead you rely on iol, news24 and Tannie Brenda for your third hand information.
The figures suggest that there are somewhere between 3-5 million immigrants in SA. (Incidentally, I think that the breadth of those numbers quite clearly indicates the huge problem with border control in SA.) And yes, crime is high in South Africa, but the suggestion that around 1,000 of those immigrants being displaced, many of them women and children (60+ injured, 23 dead as of last night) would make a difference to the number of armed robberies is a bit of a stretch. A desperate one.
And yes. It’s all on camera. And, in some ways, thank goodness it is. This is not something that should be or can be brushed under the carpet. Just because the victims are immigrants, because some foreigners may be involved in crime, because “they’ve only killed 25” doesn’t make this situation any less of a crisis.
Please note: anyone – Daxk included – is welcome to share their views by commenting on 6000 miles… provided they abide by the rules available here.
