I read on Jacaranda’s news blog that the Freedom Front Plus have called for citizens in Pretoria to come together at a crime summit.
According to Jacaranda’s blog this comes after “a family in Pretoria East was robbed three times on the same night and after another family in Waterkloof Ridge was robbed twice in the space of four days.”
I think this is an interesting idea and one that I have been talking about for a while. Community involvement is essential in the betterment of our country. Many will argue that it is not our job to curb crime, that the government should be doing it and all that jazz. I agree but don’t think that we can be standoffish. We need to band together and take our communities back. This does not imply violence of any sort, this implies unity, community and ownership. Own your problems and make them go away, own protection and start a neighbourhood watch and own your safety and that of your family.
I think this sort of initiative can work very successfully. What do you think?
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Popularity: 2% [?]
January 8th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Every time I read the “no comments” my first interpretation is “no comments allowed!”…I guess it’ll fade.
Getting together to discuss crime is a step in the right direction – if it results in constructive steps to stop crime it’ll make a difference.
After having robbers come to my house 3 time in as many days in December, I joined many South Africans by putting up razor wire…no break-ins since – razor wire, in my experience, makes a bigger difference than a get-together.
January 9th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Hahahahaha, I do appreciate the sort of kind words. I suppose I do get a fair amount of comments per post! But to let you know, I will never, ever, ever turn off comments!
I agree, I think that this type of forum is necessary and beneficial.
However, I do suppose that practically razor wire is more effective!
January 10th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
These are disturbing incidents that you quote and I am sure many around the country can relate their own personal stories that will reflect how rife this issue is. I am sure such a summit, as requested by the FF+, would go a long way in communities sharing ideas of how to apprehend those that have chosen this life of lawlessness and deter them from preying and being a menace to law abiding citizens.
However, I think that the Pretoria (read Tshwane) summit may result in the reallocation of criminal resources. Where the masterminds shift their attention from well protected and more observant communities, to those that are in a false sense of security.
For a while, certain individuals tasked with the responsibility of policing our constitutional rights, mistook the highlighting of grievances, as a result of being victims of crime and violence, as being a subtle vote of no confidence of a black government. Thus they jeered and encouraged the complainants to seek solace in the popular migrant lands (Oz, UK, NZ and even sunny Spain).
Since then, I think the individuals have taken time to reflect and have received further council and have taken more reconciliatory stances. Now, these bearers of political office have the opportunity to use their influence to redirect state organs (police, special units, inteligencia) to focus their attentions to this pandemic.
Further, the change in leadership in the leading party from intellectuals (maybe aloof) individuals to a leadership primarily constructed of a grassroots collective may result in the introduction of policies that will strike crime with great vengeance and fury deterring idle minds from terrorizing communities.
May sound a bit far fetched, but at the moment I get the feeling that a criminal doesn’t consider the possible repercussions of taking a life to secure a cellphone or raping a toddler to reverse the infection of HIV. I think that if government has policies that come down hard on lawlessness, criminals may reconsider their chose career paths.
Society must also play their part by not harboring these individuals. There are hundreds of Inyangas (traditional healers) in our communities that dispense medication that is supposed to shield criminals from being caught in the process of advancing unrest in our communities. Guess they have sworn to doctor client confidentiality, but if these criminals knew that they had no sympathizers in their own communities, they would be isolated.
When we are done, with these characters, we can then concentrate on the silent but deadly criminals: White collar crime offenders.