the thin blue line volume 7 issue 3

The Cape Town Globalist 1

The Cape Town

GlobalistUCT’s student int er nat ional affairs magaz ine

Volume 7 Issue 3 ctglobalist.com

somalia | andrew brown | the arms deal | robots | rio climate summit

The Thin Blue Line

Preserving Justice in the 21st century

august 20122

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Editor-in-ChiefAnneke Rautenbach

Deputy EditorAmy Thornton

Content EditorsChris Clark

Chantal d’OffayLiam Kruger

Olivia Walton

Layout EditorNic Botha

Deputy Layout EditorDaniel Rautenbach

CTG PresidentCarissa Cupido

Web EditorCristina Stefan

MarketingChantel Clark

FinanceHeike Victor

ContributorsRob Attwell

Neroli AustinAlicia ChamailleTimothy Cheah

Ashleigh FurlongGabrielle Demblon

Misa HanLiam Kruger

Catie MonteiroSofia MonteiroLethiwe Nkosi

Michelle OctoberCharlotte Scott

Gareth SmitLori-Rae van Laren

Olivia Walton

The Cape Town Globalist is published four times a year by students at the University of Cape Town. Any opinions

expressed are those of the authors and do not

necessarily represent those of the Cape Town Globalist, the publication sponsors, the University of Cape Town, or

Global21.To contact the CTG, [email protected]

ContentsAppetisers

6 News bites Tidbits you may have missed

8 Global conversations Q&A with SAPS reservist, author and

advocate, Andrew Brown

9 Armchair Globalist The Arms Deal arm-wrestle

News

10 The Good of a Piece of PaperMaitland Refugee Centre closes

11 More harm than good? US Aid in Somalia

12 Children of the Holy Land Child abuse in Israel-Palestine

13 Rio, rio, rio your boat Rob Atwell on the Rio Climate Change summit

Contributions14 Global21 Contributions from the Singapore Globalist and the sydney Globalist

The Thin Blue Line16 Grassroots justice, clean-cut The questions raised by Rwanda’s Gacaca courts 18 A Broken System Crime prevention in the urban space

20 Blurring the Thin Blue Line Where the justice system fails, who takes over?

22 Watch out! Photos and text by Gareth Smit

Art, Science and Philosophy

27 Domo Arigato, Sergeant Roboto Robocops in the 21st century

28 Of Milk and Men The philosophy of choice

29 Orwell vs. Huxley Lessons in freedom and control

Curtain Call

30 It’s Hard Being a Cop Liam Kruger walks a mile in their combat boots

august 20124

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Yale University • University of Toronto • University of Sydney • Hebrew University • Institut de Sciences Politiques • London School of Economics • Peking University • University of Cape Town •

University of South Australia • Oxford University • Ibmec University

Global21Network of International

Affairs Magazineswww.global21online.org

1 NETWORK LINKING FUTURE WORLD LEADERS5 LANGUAGES5 CONTINENTS 11 UNIVERSITIES245 000 STUDENTS

The Cape Town Globalist is a member of

EditorialIn 1985, South African crime-writing heavyweight Margie

Orford was a student in her third year at UCT, demonstrating against the apartheid regime. That year, she was forced to write

her final philosophy exam in prison. Unsure of why she was there, and having no information to offer, she was called in for interrogation by two burly officers. She recently recounted her experiences in The Guardian:

‘We are alone, two men and a girl in the middle of the night. No one will open the door, whatever they might hear. My fear of them – a sexual terror – slips under my skin, heading towards the bone like a filleting knife. It gets into the marrow; it lives there still.’

The dynamic between the two parties -- the intensely masculine energy emanating from the two armed officers, the vulnerability of the girl – still in pyjamas – says something about the forces of fear and intimidation that, in this particular incident, made an open and honest dialogue impossible. It calls to mind Habermas’s theory of dialogue – one that declares rational consensus the only means of solving political disputes – a theory which Habermas stated was practically useless if the ‘conditions’ were too ‘extreme’ – if the disparity of power was too vast. ‘Extreme’, like the interrogation of a terrified young woman in a soundproof vault, a situation riddled with the trauma of what might take place.

If police officers are to be seen as cogs in the machinery of justice, essential foot soldiers whose role it is to restore a sense of balance within society, the power dynamics in this particular instance were decidedly imbalanced.

Of course, apartheid was a system in which the concepts of justice and balance were thrown entirely out of whack – hence its inevitable demise.

But there is little doubt that power dynamics – dynamics of a sexual or racial nature -- are still heavily present in the way that the police manage the streets of South Africa today. It is these associations with violent control, with a rule of fear – a residue from the old days – that tend to surface and re-surface in our collective subconscious. Add to that regular instances of corruption at the top of the new regime’s police pyramid, and it has become very difficult to know who to trust.

There is no question about it: policing is a sore spot in South Africa.Furthermore, the public is growing increasingly restless at the police’s apparent incompetence: where the army is not

requested to control gang violence on the Cape flats, community police has taken over. Ordinary doctors, teachers and parents, tired of waiting to be saved, now cruise the streets in bullet-proof vests, armed with paintball guns and walkie-talkies (and manage soup kitchens during the day). In Rwanda, the public initiative of the grassroots Gacaca courts has put justice into the hands of the people. More sinisterly, Cape Town’s townships have been plagued by another hated symbol of the old regime: the necklacing of murderers and rapists – or of people considered to be murderers and rapists. What do these alternative systems of law and order bode for justice, a concept that theoretically allows each individual a fair trial?

How far do the responsibilities of the justice system stretch, and can we take more holistic, preventative measures to solving crime? What does ‘an architecture of fear’ really mean?

In our philosophy section, we ask where the (thin blue) line runs between freedom and control, and what these have to do with justice.

And finally, where would we be without the police? In our Q&A we chat to Andrew Brown, advocate and author of Street Blues, an account of his experiences as a reservist sergeant for the SAPS. He speaks fondly of his colleagues – the heroic who serve on the ground, those who tend to be ignored when we are assaulted with bad news.

Policing in South Africa, more so than the rest of the world, tends to get under our skin – it cuts like a knife to marrow. But let us be careful not to judge too harshly – as Brown reminds us, ‘It is a gruelling, demanding job and – for the most – they do it with great skill and good humour.’

Here’s to the boys in blue,

Anneke RautenbachEditor-in-Chief

Image by James Honnibol

august 20126

News bites

Syrian governmental forces have offi-cially been found to torture people. In July, Hu-man Rights Watch released a detailed report of locations, agencies responsible and methods used. Human Rights Watch is using the report to lobby the UN to refer the Syrian case to the International Criminal Court. The report is based on over 200 interviews conducted since the beginning of the violence in March 2011. Documented torture methods include beatings with batons, induced stress positions, electric shocks, acid burning and finger nail pulling.

On the 4th of July, the team at CERN in Ge-neva announced the historical discovery of the Higgs-Boson particle. The particle was first theorised by Peter Higgs in 1964 and was iden-tified, within his lifetime, at the biggest particle physics laboratory in the world. The Higgs-Boson is nicknamed ‘the God particle’ because without it there would be no mass -- no stars, planets or people. The significance of the dis-covery to physics is being compared to the im-portance of the discovery of DNA to biology. Scientists are hoping this breakthrough opens the door to more mysteries of the universe, particularly the elusive ‘dark matter’ which is thought to make up three-quarters of the uni-verse.

Syrian torture officially on paper

A Particularly Pertinent Particle

Mediterranean blues

COUNTING CONTROL

17%of police officers on active duty failed a firearm proficiency test this year

40 456 220Rands worth of illegal abalone confiscated by SAPS in 2011

93 South African police officers killed in the line of duty in 2011

157 380police currently employed in South Africa

Spain is in crisis. As soon as it won another round of bailouts for its banks and announced a 65 billion euro tax rise, several of its regions (Valencia and Mercia) announced bankruptcy and their intention to rely on the state for re-lief. Greece is also wringing its hands as some question its membership of the Eurozone. The prime minister has a few weeks to convince bankers of his commitment to the latest Greek economic reforms. If the European Commis-sion remains unconvinced, Greece may be denied another loan which may have ramifica-tions for its Eurozone membership.

On the 24th of June, the last remaining Galapagos tortoise, Lonesome George, died. It is estimated that he was over 100 years old. George was found in 1971 on Pinta Island by a Hungarian looking for snails. For decades, scientists encouraged him to mate by enticing him with females from a slightly different sub-species, but George wasn’t playing ball. He was either impervious to their charms or, as The Economist speculated, ‘possibly he was gay’. He remained unmoved despite the greatest efforts of a Swiss zoology graduate who daubed her-self in tortoise hormones and provided manual stimulation for four months.

Greener pastures for Lonesome George

Lie-BOR Scandal

Barclays has been fined $450 million for manipulating the LIBOR to increase traders’ profits, leading to the resignation of its chief executive, Bob Diamond. LIBOR is the rate at which banks lend to banks, and although the scandal involves a British bank, it will have an international impact. $800 trillion worth of other rates are set using the LIBOR as a base, affecting the mortgage and interest rates of or-dinary people. A second instance of manipula-tion on Barclays’ part was to lower the LIBOR as a signal that the banks were recovering from the recession – something for which Barclays claims they received an implicit nod from the Bank of England, supposedly to bolster public confidence during the crisis. Either way, the public is baying for banker blood in light of the lack of retribution after the 2008 credit crash.


Goodnight, Mr President

The president of Ghana, John Atta Mills, died on the 24th of July. He was 68 and had suffered a short illness, the nature of which has not yet been disclosed. Insiders report that he suffered from voice and weight loss. Mills be-came president in January 2009 by a narrow 1% margin, and was to contest his position in polls scheduled to happen in December this year. Mills’ presidency was marked by the discovery of oil in 2010, and his funeral was attended by a crowd 10 000 strong.

Questions have been raised about Amer-ica’s gun laws after twelve people were shot dead and 59 injured at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Denver, Colorado on the 21st July. Police have arrested 24-year-old James Holmes who attacked the cinema dressed head-to-toe in ballistic gear, toting four guns (a shotgun, a semi-automatic assault rifle and two handguns), 6000 rounds and 350 shotgun cartridges. Holmes bought this $2000 worth of ammunition online and his guns from local sports shops. The shooter had recently dropped out of a doctoral program in neuroscience at the University of Colorado. Police evacuated Holmes’ apartment block as he had booby-trapped his apartment exten-sively with trip-wires, explosive liquids and homemade grenades. Gun sales in Colorado spiked immedieately after the shooting, ac-cording to the Colorado Bureau of Investiag-tion. 2,887 background checks—compulsory for people wanting to buy firearms—were run in the three days after July 20th, compared to 2,012 in the same period the week before.

COUNTING CONTROL

anneke rautenbach & Amy thornton Photographs courtesy of wikimedia commonsStatistics courtesy of timeslive.co.za and News24.co.za

19 Average number of seconds it takes for another American to be arrested for drug-related crime

1.85 millionCCTVs in Britain (1 for every 32 people)

1 police officer is being investigated for smugglingR40 456 220-worth of abaloneof police officers on active duty failed a firearm

proficiency test this year

Rubber bullets outlawed in SA

South Africa’s police minister Nathi Mthethwa has announced that the use of rub-ber bullets against unruly protestors is now outlawed in South Africa. This was announced at the Mpumalanga Safety and Security sum-mit in Secunda on the 3rd August. Police have been ordered to use water cannons instead of rubber bullets in the instance of vandalism and police provocation. Mthethwa has also recent-ly commented on Western Cape Premier Helen Zille’s request to the president to have the army deployed to the Cape Flats to control gang vio-lence in the area, saying that an army presence would be irresponsible as the army has only live ammunition at its disposal.

35 - 50 active serial killers in the USA, according to former FBI Chief John Dougles

Nodding disease “mystery”

Uganda has been plagued by a mysterious nodding disease, affecting children between the ages of 5 and 15. It is estimated that the disease has killed about 300 children. Almost nothing is known about the syndrome besides symptoms of compulsive nodding, growth stunting and destroyed cognition. The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the disease has reached epidemic status. Uganda is hosting a WHO conference to be attended by 120 scientists to study this baffling disease. Whilst it is unknown if the dis-ease is communicable or not, sufferers cannot perform basic tasks or recognise their parents and are often tied to trees by overworked car-egivers in inadequate conditions.

appetisers

One Dark Night

‘Unbelievable’ Olympics for South Africa

South African athletes shone at the Lon-don 2012 Olympics. After Cameron van der Burgh broke the world record in the 100m breaststroke, Chad Le Clos delighted specta-tors with his victory against Michael Phelps in the 200m butterfly. His father, Bert, became an overnight media sensation after his short and emotional interview following the race. Dur-ing the interview he described his son as ‘the most down to earth, beautiful boy you will ever meet’, his gruff voice earning him the nickname ‘the Cookie Monster’. SA rowers attained a sur-prising victory against Denmark, France, Italy and China in the Men’s Lightweight Fours, se-curing them a place in the A final, and their subsequent gold victory. Caster Semenya came first in the 800m semi-final heat, with respectable silver in the 800m final.

appetisers

august 20128

appetisers

Q & Awith

How long have you been on the SAPS as a reservist? What made you join?

I have been [at SAPS Mowbray] for 13 years now – how time flies when you’re being shot at! I had been very involved as an activist in the 1980s, but had no desire to go into poli-tics after 1994. Once the euphoria of our new democracy had died down, I was left feeling a bit directionless: I was looking for some way to continue making a contribution which didn’t involve committee meetings and political de-bates. After much searching, I ended up join-ing the police reservists. Given my history and experiences, I was initially very ambivalent, but I don’t regret it for one moment.

There are often complaints about uneven distribution of SAPS resources between middle-class suburbs and poorer areas. Why is this?

I think there is often a misperception about the police and the distribution of re-sources: that is probably the fault of the police PR, which is pretty dire at times. To give you an example, my station (Mowbray) has only a handful of active reservists and is not particu-larly well resourced (in terms of vehicles, staff, infrastructure). The township stations often have well over 100 reservists and are often bet-ter resourced - but then our crime statistics are far lower than in the townships. Policy dic-tates that a station with more crime problems gets more resources, which makes complete sense; however, since it is far easier to police a middle-class suburb than to manage a town-ship – given population density, the road infra-structure, poverty – this gives the impression of better-resourced policing in the wealthier areas.

What has your experience of policing in South Africa been like?

That is a hard question to answer – I did write a whole book about it (called Street Blues)! In general, I have been incredibly im-pressed by the rank and file policemen and women who work on the shifts and work in the station. It still amazes me to see young men and women who live in Blue Downs, Mitchells Plain and elsewhere, arriving at work ready to police and protect a middle-class suburb, at times to risk their lives to do it, only to finish a shift and to return to their homes. I have also been hugely impressed by the compassion and patience shown by police officers when dealing with complaints. It is a gruelling, demanding job and – for the most – they do it with great skill and good humour.

Can you comment on the recent acquittal of the men accused of killing UCT student Dominic Giddy?

It is always upsetting when someone who you feel is guilty walks free: we want people to be held accountable for their conduct and it is frustrating when such a tragic death is left un-solved and unpunished. As a policeman, it is infuriating. But as a lawyer, I understand that it is the very foundation of our criminal justice system (which is an excellent one) that a con-viction can result only where the court is sure as to the guilt of the accused. It places a high onus on the police and prosecution.

How effective do you think the police are in South Africa (or just in Cape Town), and what are some of the things that might hin-der them?

There are positives and there are problems. Policing a country with our unique history, with our class and wealth divides, is always go-ing to be difficult. I think we need the special-ist units back (Narcotics Squad etc.) for a start. Improved forensic capabilities would also help. And the community needs to get on side – the new South African Police Force needs the sup-port and the commitment of the communities that it polices.

You were once arrested by the security police in the 1980s. What is it like to have seen both sides of the long arm of the law? And, how is the SAPS of today different from the state police of the 1980s?

Yes, I was arrested several times. I was de-tained in solitary confinement in Pollsmoor, and I sport a number of criminal convictions for various offences – the most serious being two convictions for public violence. So I have appeared in the High Court as an accused, an advocate for the defence and an acting Judge – which makes for a slightly schizophrenic life. Obviously, my previous interactions with the police had been confrontational and vio-lent and so putting on the SAPS uniform was initially very uncomfortable for me. But it is a new force, and even if some of the old guard is there, attitudes have changed and there is recognition for people’s constitutional rights. I have not had a moment’s problem with any of my colleagues, though there are plenty of jokes at my expense.

Andrew Brown, SAPS reservist, author and advocate speaks to Olivia Walton about his experiences—from apartheid activist to Mowbray beat cop.

Andrew Brown is the author of several works of fiction and Street Blues, an account of his experiences as a SAPS reservist.

Olivia Walton is an Honours student in History.

Andrew Brown

CTG


The literature on the South African Arms Deal reads like an inconclusive John Grisham novel: a country emerges out of lifelong turbulence and, in

the messy wake left by years of war and oppression, falls prey to corrupt local and international parties.

In October 1999, it was announced that South Africa would purchase arms that by 2018 will have set the South African economy back $6 billion. This happened at the same time as Thabo Mbeki’s refusal to give vital medica-tion to Aids-sufferers, citing a lack of resources to do so.

In his book The Shadow World, Andrew Feinstein de-tails the corruption embedded within the details of the arms deal that was eventually secured between South Af-rica and the British Aerospace and defence company (BAE Systems) and the Swedish Aeroplane Company Limited (SAAB).

Above all, South Africa didn’t have the funds to pur-chase two separate jets – one for warfare and one for train-ing. For this, a dual purpose Italian fighter/training jet was favoured by the technical committee (comprising various members of parliament) overseeing the deal. The jets pro-posed by BAE and SAAB were roughly twice the price of the cheap and cheerful Italian model.

However, according to the whims of then Defence Minister Joe Modise, the committee was overruled and their proposals cast aside. The South African government went all out and purchased expensive Hawk and Gripen jets from both SAAB and BAE, as well as helicopters from Italy.

This was just the beginning. Whilst the deal promised to create 65 000 jobs of which only 28 000 have since been created, political figures key to securing the contract al-legedly received massive kick-backs. Amongst this illustri-ous group were said to be Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma, Joe Modise, and Fana Hlongwane, adviser to Modise. Hlong-wane is alleged to have received R200 million in payments.

The Public Accounts Committee launched an investi-gation into the arms deal process in 2000, after allegations that bribes had been paid to government officials to facili-tate the deal. The investigation was soon suppressed after a November 2001 report by the auditor general, the public defender and the national director of public prosecution cited that there were no grounds to believe the govern-ment had acted illegally.

Since then, various other investigations into the arms deal have stumbled into administrative chaos and have been shut down by the government. The Scorpions, or-dered to further investigate the deal independently, were disbanded by the government in 2009 before the investiga-tion could yield results.

The Hawks, the newest independent investigative

agency, were also given the mandate to uncover the cor-rupt arms deal. This probe was closed in 2010, with Dra-mat, head of the Hawks, stating that the outcome of the investigation would be unsatisfactory.

But following a public admission this year by SAAB that BAE had indeed paid bribes to cement a South Afri-can arms contract, the probe has been reopened.

Activist and ex-banker Terry Crawford-Browne has lobbied tirelessly for a proper investigative commission to look into the deal in more detail. His call was surprisingly heeded by Jacob Zuma and the Seriti Commission of In-quiry was set up, headed by judge Willie Seriti. However, since its inception it too has been fraught with administra-tive interference. Two evidence leaders have been sacked due to links to previous arms deals. The commission has recently been accused of heel-dragging, as it has used up a quarter of its allocated 2-year investigative period, without any sight of public hearings.

At present, Crawford-Browne is pushing for a further investigation into Barclay’s involvement in the arms deal; it is alleged that the money was borrowed from Barclays for the purchase of the weapons. In 1999, Crawford-Browne had already advised the UK and South Africa that any Barclays loan for the BAE deal would be fraudulent. Absa contributes 20% to Barclay’s total group revenue. In a re-cent letter to Amandla! Media, Crawford-Browne stated that the arms deal could be ended if the South African gov-ernment cancelled the contract and claimed for compen-sation, thus recovering much-needed tax-payer money.

The implications of the arms deal go far beyond the corruption in the highest offices of government. Let’s not forget what it means for the good old ‘average South Afri-can’. Not only could the ANC factionalism that the debate over the deal has helped to spawn have an impact on future elections, as well as on the much-anticipated Manguang conference, but the money lost to what has turned out to be heavily underused weaponry could have been redis-tributed more widely to help facilitate South Africa’s long-promised social transformation.

It seems that should the arms deal remain unresolved, it could have catastrophic consequences on the future of this country, both at institutional and individual levels. On the upside, the expensive weaponry would at least help to subdue the potential waves of dissenters without too much fuss.

The Arms Deal arm-wrestle The quest to know the elusive inner workings of the South African Arms Deal has often yielded little more than a string of loose and dead ends for local media, investigative bodies and much of the general population alike, and that suits those who helped secure the controversial deal. Michelle October unravels an intricate web of corruption, accusations and acronyms.

political figures key to securing the contract

allegedly received massive kick-backs

Michelle Octoberis a third-year student majoring in Politics, Philosophy and Economics.

appetisers

CTG

august 201210

The good of a piece of paper

‘We are not criminals, we want papers!’ These were the chants of the men and women from all over Africa who marched to Parliament

in Cape Town on the 20th of June 2012, World Refugee Day. They did so to present a memorandum expressing their anger over the closure of the Refugee Reception Cen-tre in Maitland. The centre assisted asylum seekers with their applications for refugee status, many undergoing this process for the first time. The South African Home Affairs Department unexpectedly decided to close the office and requested that first-time refugee applicants travel to the of-fices either in Pretoria, Johannesburg or Musina to receive documents to verify their status.

As the memorandum was read to the crowd, it became clear that the chant was not merely a statement –it was a petition to be rightfully recognised.

The UN Convention of 1951 defines a refugee as a per-son who flees his or her home country ‘owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, reli-gion, membership of a particular social group or political opinion’ and is ‘unable to or unwilling to avail himself to the protection of that country’. Refugees from around the continent perceive South Africa as a place that will shield them from threats to their safety in their home country.

There are myriad reasons for this, as Rebecca Chenel-les from the Scalabrini Centre, which helps refugees inte-grate socially and legally into society, illustrates. Firstly, she states that South Africa—unlike Kenya, for example—does not have a camp policy. In a country where such a policy exists, Chenelles explains that the well-being of a refugee is ‘dependent entirely on the people who are organising the camp, and their humanitarian spirits’.

The risk that resources or benevolence might run low places any refugee in a position of dangerous uncertainty. If the organisers are unable to sustain their humanitarian effort, life in a camp may become just as bad, or even worse than, life in the refugee’s home country. In contrast, a refu-

gee in South Africa can theoretically establish a lifestyle similar to one of local South Africans. This is primarily be-cause South Africa is a signatory to the UN and AU Con-ventions on refugees’ rights. The provisions of these two conventions are also enshrined in the Refugee Act of 1998, which recognises and protects a refugee’s human rights.

South Africa is also a favourable location geographi-cally: in most cases refugees come from war-torn coun-tries in central and east Africa. Many seek to come to a country that will be as far away as possible from the con-flict. In this light, the decision by Home Affairs to close the Maitland reception centre and compel refugees to go to re-ception offices on the borders may jeopardise the refugees’ safety. If, for instance, a refugee in Cape Town has to travel to the reception office in Musina, he or she is not legally protected and is vulnerable to arrest or exploitation by law enforcement officers and other citizens.

Despite the protection offered by the constitution, refugees are under immense pressure to attain the correct papers. The frustration this can cause is exacerbated by the animosity felt by many South Africans toward refugees. Antony Mutiti, a former Zimbabwean refugee and mem-ber of the People Against Suffering, Suppression, Oppres-sion and Poverty (PASSOP), says that in his experience, ‘being a refugee is synonymous with being condemned’. Mutiti’s account is just one of many.

According to Mutiti, refugees are constantly ridiculed by their community members, who often refer to them in derogatory terms. The lower social position is not only seen in these communities, but also within the workplace. In Mutiti’s experience, most employers do not always un-derstand the laborious process of attaining a work permit and are reluctant to employ refugees or provide them with job security.

Chenelles believes that many of the misconceptions South Africans have about refugees stem from ignorance, seeing them as economic migrants who are intent on ‘steal-ing their jobs’. This could be remedied by effective govern-ment initiatives to educate South Africans about the status and rights of refugees. However, if this is not done soon, the government policies regarding refugees as well as their constitutional rights will remain just a piece of paper.

Lethiwe Nkosiis a Masters student in African Studies.

‘Being a refugee is synonymous with

being condemned’

After the closure of the Maitland Refugee Reception Centre, manyrefugees in Cape Town are faced with a terrifying future of displacement and struggle. Lethiwe Nkosi takes a closer look.

news

CTG

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.


news

Somalia can no longer strictly be categorised as a ‘failed state’, yet its limited government still fails to provide public services; its people are starving

and young children continue to drive combat trucks as they wield AK47s – not exactly the picture of success. In addition to this political turmoil, since July 2011 the Somali people have been severely affected by one of the worst East African famines in sixty years. It has resulted in a dire food crisis across multiple East African coun-tries, endangering the lives of 9.5 million people.

Many refugees, from southern Somalia in particu-lar, have attempted to escape to Ethiopia and Kenya. However, as the famine is just as critical in those states, issues of overcrowding, food shortages, and unsanitary conditions have led to hundreds of devastating fatali-ties. Despite the fact that the worst of the famine is now over, the UN rightly claims that Somalia is in great need of international assistance.

The question is, can aid bring about any good at all? Aid distribution in Somalia has historically resulted in increased conflict as warlords attempt to claim the re-sources for themselves. Assuming aid did not increase conflict, the question is whether the dubious incentives underlying US aid interfere with distribution, rendering the process ineffective.

Under the questionable pretext of ‘saving the starv-ing African people’, the US government is bracing itself for yet another military intervention in Somalia. It is true that the famine is rapidly worsening and Somali citizens are desperately in need of aid, however only idealists would assume that providing aid is an act of pure altruism on behalf of the US. Since the UN estab-lished ‘Responsibility to Protect’, states have interpreted this ethos rather loosely: ‘a responsibility to protect when it suits us best.’

Regaining control over Somalia is critical for the US to maintain its global hegemony in competition with ri-val power-state China. Somalia is central to a crossroad of global trade both on sea and air, and sees as many as 90 commercial flights crossing its airspace every day. Moreover, sea-lanes that carry large amounts of oil from North Africa and the Gulf are conveniently close to its coast. Suffering Somalis would likely acknowledge that it does not matter what aid is motivated by, as long as it reaches them. However, problems arise when US motives start interfering with distribution of aid, undo-ing the ‘efforts’ to help Somali people.

Furthermore, Al-Shabaab, an Islamist terrorist or-ganisation, holds extensive power in Somalia, acting as

a self-authorised ‘government’ in certain regions. US officials have stated concern that Al-Shabaab is closely tied to Al-Qaeda and thus poses a threat to US secu-rity; however, this link is questionable at best. In addi-tion, they blame Al-Shabaab for worsening the effects of the famine: Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, expressed that ‘the relentless terrorism by al-Shabaab against its people has turned an already severe situation into a dire one that is only expected to get worse.’

Both these concerns are evident when observing the limitations implemented concerning where the US distributes aid in Somalia. Washington has refused to distribute aid to areas that are not under the control of the US-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG), problematic as the limitation restricts Somali access to aid to a few square miles. Approximately 2.8 million Somali people live in Al-Shabaab controlled ar-eas, meaning that 60% of Somalians are unable to ac-cess aid.

Taking extreme measures, the US declared that any agency which attempts to supply food in Al-Shabaab territories runs the risk of being accused of aiding and abetting the terrorist organisation. In 2009, the World Food Programme was forced to end their feeding pro-gram that aided mothers and malnourished children for this very reason. This seems fairly counter-intuitive and, furthermore, in conflict with the US’s public moti-vation for intervention – which they have made clear is to help Somalia and to maintain the War on Terror (an unconvincing battle that has continued since its incep-tion during the Bush administration). Moreover, it is unfair, as many Somali citizens under Al-Shabaab rule cannot travel to where aid is available and are thus not given the choice of where they reside.

The aid limitations prove the point that providing aid is not the US’s primary goal in an intervention; rath-er it is a publicity-friendly hood they are pulling over the eyes of the international community, in an attempt to regain control of Somalia.

Catie Monteirois a second-year student majoring in Politics and History.

Under the questionable pretext of ‘saving the starving African people’, the US government is bracing itself for yet another military intervention in Somalia

Catie Monteiro investigates the subtexts and implications of US aid in the Somali famine.

More harmthan good?

news

CTG


august 201212

news

Recently, a shocking video has been doing the rounds on the internet, depicting an IDF soldier kicking a screaming Palestinian child. The camera

used to film the incident was given out to Palestinians by the Israeli Information Centre of Human Rights in occu-pied Palestine (B’Tselem), with the purpose of document-ing these incidents of abuse.

Although the political conflict between Israel and Pal-estine has been critically discussed for over sixty years, awareness around child abuse has only recently been raised. According to reports, many Palestinian children between the ages of five and 16 have been subjected to both verbal and physical abuse by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). Recent investigations have revealed that Palestinian children are discriminated against under the law, and up to 700 children are detained per year. Palestinians in oc-cupied territories are subject to Israel’s military laws while Israeli citizens that have settled in the occupied territories are subjected to Israeli Civilian Law. Under these differing laws Israeli children can only receive a custodial sentence at the age of 14, while for Palestinians the age is 12.

Horrifically, Palestinian children can be detained with-out charge for up to 6 months, whereas Israeli children may only be detained without charge for a month and a half. In many cases Palestinian children who have been charged will wait a full week before they are brought before a judge, and in this time they have often suffered abuse as a means of extorting from them confessions of the crimes with which they have been charged. These are drastic measures considering that the most common felony committed by Palestinian children is to throw rocks at the IDF.

Criminal charges often take the form of ‘night raids’ in which the IDF will pull children from their homes, blind-fold and shackle them with plastic zip ties that cut their skins. They are loaded into vans without explanation, and their families do not receive information about the reasons for their detention.

During interrogations many Palestinian children are left ignorant of their legal rights: they have not been in-formed that they are not obligated to answer questions, or that they are allowed a family member or a legal repre-sentative. Many who have investigated the reports of child abuse in Palestine argue that the discriminatory treatment towards Palestinians is a gross injustice which violates many human rights and international laws surrounding the treatment of children.

The Israelis are not the only ones who seem to be taking advantage of Palestinian children. It is not uncom-mon for them to be sent to youth camps over the sum-mer, and recently the IDF Civil Administration hosted a

three-day camp for Palestinian children with cancer, while the usual camp orchestrated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for occupied Palestine was shut down by HAMAS, an Islamic resistance movement. There has been much speculation surrounding the running of these camps, and it is reported that at the HAMAS ‘We Will Live Honourable’ camps, Palestinian children undergo a form of indoctrination through which they are taught methods of violent activism against Israel. Almost 70 thousand have attended these military training camps, where the usual goals of promoting peace through teamwork, education and skills-building activities are forfeited by induction into socio-political bias.

A little hope comes in the form of an organisation called Breaking the Silence. This project is made up of Is-raeli veterans that have finished their training in the IDF and wish to make Israeli citizens aware of what goes on in occupied Palestine. Many who have testified as part of Breaking the Silence speak of the kind of dehumanisation which is bred by military conflict.

There are several other organisations like Breaking the Silence (created by both governments and civilians) which aid the situation within Israel and occupied Palestine. UNICEF established psychosocial emergency teams to op-erate in the West Bank between 2002 and 2011 with hopes of protecting the children from the ongoing violence. Doc-tors Without Borders have been in the Gaza Strip since 2000 but fear for Palestinian children as the situation in the Gaza Strip deteriorates. Defence for Children Inter-national (DCI) was initially established to give legal aid to Palestinian children, but it has now evolved to offer all Palestinians – especially children and adolescents – legal aid in all situations.

An international organisation called Face to Face Faith to Faith Youth Dialogue and Leadership Program (F2F) an-nually strives to bring adolescent Palestinians and Israelis together in order to better understand each other in the hope of fostering peace, despite the political antagonisms concerning land occupation. During the year-long F2F program they are taught to recognise the hopes and fears of the other side, as well as explore the validity of subjec-tive viewpoints.

International health activists, including Israelis and Palestinians, have come together to create a website named Born Equal in order to help Israelis and Palestinians to co-exist within the same homeland. Born Equal wishes to protect children from either side of the conflict from the physical and mental violence bred by the land disputes; it uses a variety of scholarly materials to make people aware of the situation in Israel-Palestine and to improve the psy-chological well-being of Palestinian children who have suffered abuse. The conflict in Israel and occupied Pales-tine is far from resolved, but with continued rehabilitative therapy and aid from these organisations, there is hope for the children who will inherit it.

Children of the Holy LandAlicia Chamaille takes a look at the rising problem of child abuse in Israel-Palestine.

Almost 70 thousand have attended

these military training camps

Alicia Chamailleis a first year BA student in History and Classical Studies.

news

CTG

Two friends at a refugee camp in West Bank.



news

Rio, Rio, Rio your boatRob Attwell reports on the latest white elephant to heft itself across the world’s climate change stage.

In June 2012, world leaders gathered in Rio de Janeiro for the Earth Summit. State leaders and ministers from 190 countries ratified the final document, which aims

to set goals for sustainable development. These include the strengthening of global environmental management, greater protection of the oceans from pollution and over-fishing, improved food security, the developing of strate-gies for coping with a growing population, and the promo-tion of ‘green economies.’

The message offered in UN General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon’s opening address was straightforward in its criti-cism of previous summits. ‘Let me be frank,’ he said, ‘our efforts have not lived up to the measure of the challenge. Nature does not wait. Nature does not negotiate with hu-man beings.’

The Earth Summit has been met with widespread criticism. Firstly, the absence of certain notable individuals has drawn the ire of the global green community. President Obama of the United States, Prime Minister Cameron of Britain, Chancellor Merkel of Germany and President Hu of China all stayed at home to mind their respective do-mestic issues.

However, Sha Zukang – the UN official responsible for the summit – did point out that the absence of these heads of state would have no detrimental effect on Rio +20, as all those countries would be sending other notable, if not quite as important, government representatives. For example, the US representative was the very impressive Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. In contrast, the British representative was the slightly less impressive Nick Clegg.

While it stands as more of a symbolic blow to the Earth Summit, the absence of people like President Obama and Chancellor Merkel does highlight the political prefer-ence given to economic rather than environmental or so-cial concerns.

A more tangible problem with the summit lies, like Copenhagen before it, in its failure to live up public expec-tations. It was billed as a ‘once in a generation chance’ to transform the global economy and make it more sustain-able. Barbara Stocking, chief executive for Oxfam in Great Britain, said in an interview with the BBC, ‘It absolutely did not do that. We had the leaders of the world here, but they really did not take decisions that will take us forward.’

‘It was a real lack of action that is very worrying, be-cause we know how difficult the situation is in much of the world in terms of the environment and poverty, and they did not show the leadership we needed them to bring.’

The final document was named ‘The Future We Want’, and even Nick Clegg described it as ‘insipid.’

One of the major problems with the document lies in the fact that, to encourage countries to sign off on it, important issues are either coated in the vaguest possi-

ble language or they are backtracked on. For instance, the document initially advocated universal access to family planning, making reproductive health part of international development strategies - but these references to reproduc-tive rights were removed from the document at the insist-ence of the Vatican (that’s right, the Vatican actually counts as a country and can affect these things). In particular, the Vatican delegation objected to the phrase ‘access to repro-ductive health services’ being linked to women’s empower-ment.

This specific ‘step backwards’ has been criticised by human rights groups and politicians alike. In reference to it, US representative Hillary Clinton said ‘Women must be empowered to make decisions about whether, and when, to have children.’ She continued by reaffirming the com-mitment of the United States to ensuring that reproductive rights are protected in international agreements.

On a more positive note, Dr Andrew Deutz, director of international relations at the Nature Conservancy, not-ed that many of the sideline events indicated that there was a growing interest in investing in ‘natural capital.’ Natural capital refers to an economic notion of capital (manufac-tured means of production) as goods and services relat-ing to the natural environment. Additionally, Dr Deutz has said ‘Many of the businesses here are recognising that environmental degradation can be a major business risk if they don’t deal with it.’

For example, Microsoft has said that they will charge an internal carbon-fee on their operations in over 100 countries. This forms part of their strategy to become carbon-neutral by 2013. Eni – the Italian oil company – has promised to reduce its flaring of natural gas. Addition-ally, Femsa, the South American bottling company, aims at getting 85% of its energy needs for its Mexican operations from renewable sources.

So, there are mixed conclusions to be taken away from the Rio + 20 Summit. There was much vague political pos-turing, which ultimately accomplished nothing concrete. That said, sideline events have led to more tangible prom-ises from private sector companies (despite significant cynicism on the part of some commentators who see these as PR stunts) regarding the environment. It remains to be seen whether they will have a more meaningful role to play in the future.

rob attwelis an Honours student in History.

The final document was named ‘The

Future We Want’, and even Nick Clegg

described it as ‘insipid.’

news

CTG

august 201214

Indian tutor who was very competent but he could nev-er express himself. People hated the course because they couldn’t understand’.

Daniel, who works at a call centre, says it often merely comes down to being understood when you speak, what-ever your accent, but concedes that there is prejudice against certain accents which can effect migrants’ employ-

ment opportunities and productiv-ity at work.

The issue, then, might be-come whether an accent should be thought of as akin to a skill that can be developed and altered or wheth-er an accent should be considered as an unalterable identifying trait akin to race or gender.

In Australia, different linguis-tic backgrounds result in different accents which merge and clash in classrooms, offices, and social gatherings. On one hand, these ac-cents form a unique part of each of

our identities: they speak to our origins. But at the same time, an accent’s perceived change-

ability breeds the expectation that people can, and should, adjust their accent to suit the convenience of the majority of society around them. Society may need to overcome the hurdle of accent to ensure that it speaks in diverse voices – literally.

Historically, accent has been both a determinant and manifestation of one’s social status. Today, it

represents a global force that shapes many economic and social decisions, from the outsourcing of call centres to the ban on Sesame Street in Australian households.

In a culturally diverse Australian society, it is worth questioning the extent to which the onus should be on the majority to understand accented English or whether the minority should be expected to adopt some form of ‘standard Australian’.

In the labour market, migrants often face difficulties and prejudice in jobs that require communication skills. These difficulties can start in the training stages of a profession where interaction with the broader community is required.

Anna, who works at a hospi-tal as part of her degree, finds that international students often have trouble interacting with patients: “Elderly patients don’t understand [them] ... [The] older generation definitely have a prejudice against accents. It affects all professions where there is the communication element of interaction” she says.

These same difficulties can arise in a university context where a lecturer speaks with an accent. James, who was studying Engineering at Sydney University, says ‘I had an

‘can this society be more open,’ Associate Professor Shi Yuzhi wrote, ostensibly with ref-erence to China, implicitly with reference to

Singapore, ‘not immediately to dismiss the use of psyche-delic drugs?’ Shi then invoked the iconic Steve Jobs, the late Apple CEO. ‘To produce a master in inventions, we need an open-minded environment.’

In Singapore, narcotics are generally an uncontrover-sial issue because most of us are on the same page. No one sympathises with a drug abuser, or worse, a dope peddler, because that would be like sympathising with a rapist. We hear of drug-related crime in the West and shrug our shoulders, a picture of indifference and smug disdain. Why can’t these ignorant liberals get their act in order? We say.

But the topic may require more nuanced treatment. Psychedelic drugs like LSD and ec-stasy enhance creativity by disabling filters which block or suppress signals from reaching the conscious mind, or so the tenuous argument goes. They have been used to treat depression and schizophrenia, although their medical ef-fectiveness is not proven. They have evolved from hippie staple to neuroscientific enigma.

Truly fascinating, but this, in fact, obscures the key thrust of Professor Shi’s candid blogpost—the lack of intel-lectual freedom in China and Singapore. As a result, many of us have chosen to interpret the professor’s blogpost in a

Is ‘accentism’ the new racism?

literal fashion that speaks volumes about our society; our inclination to react rather than think, and even more wor-ryingly, our instinct to protect dogma at all costs.

The irony is that University of Singapore had previ-ously been indignant when members of the Yale faculty argued against collaboration between the two universities, citing the lack of this exact same academic and intellectual freedom, which they believed would have been incompat-

ible with Yale’s own mission.Instead, a different response,

more measured and thoughtful, could have had consequential ben-efits. It could have provided reas-surance in the form of actions, not words, that thought can be ex-changed freely in the regional mar-ketplace of ideas, without fear of be-ing classed as contraband.

We ridicule Professor Shi’s claims because they represent a threat to our social values, a threat which we don’t quite understand, but would prefer to remain unequivocal, so that the frame of good versus evil remains intact. Some may claim it is borne out of pro-tective instinct towards the more vulnerable and impres-sionable sections of society. They might even be right, but such noble intentions betray a lack of confidence in their education, their judgment, their ability to make sound de-cisions. If we continue to undermine the intellectual devel-opment of our youth, then we are clearly tripping if we ex-pect a generation of original thinkers magically to emerge.

You must be tripping!

G21

G21

CTG

Neroli Austin and Misa Han are writers for the sydney Globalist.

Timothy Cheah is a writer for the sinGapore Globalist.

Global21

Image courtesy of wikimedia commons

27

Image courtesy of wikimedia commons


THE THIN BLUE LINE

by gabrielle demblon

by lori-rae van loren

A Broken System

Grassroots justice, clean-cut

by ashleigh furlong

Blurring the Thin Blue Line

images & text by gareth smit

Watch Out!

august 201216

the thin blue line

In the wake of one of the most horrific genocides the world has ever witnessed, the Tutsi-led Rwandan gov-ernment found itself faced with the task of providing

justice and compensation for victims and simultaenously rebuilding a shattered nation. The mandate of these mis-sions, already troubled, was complicated by the sheer num-ber of people involved in acts of violence and genocide in 1994. By the time Rwanda was ready to provide justice for its genocide victims, it found its judicial system in such a state of disorder - with most of the country’s courtrooms having been destroyed, and its judges and legal practition-ers either dead or in exile - that trying perpetrators of gen-ocide in the usual way would have taken up to 200 years. With the jails overflowing (it is estimated that over 124 000 prisoners were detained in prisons with a capacity of only 49 000), action taken needed to be swift and potent.

In 2001 Rwanda’s Gacaca courts were born. These courts, based on a traditional Rwandan method of settling disputes over theft, land rights or vandalism through com-munal justice, were founded as transitional institutions designed to aid healing and provide the Rwandan people with a way to move on. The word ‘Gacaca’ is translated to mean ‘short, clean-cut grass’, symbolic of a meeting place for traditional judges to conduct trials and provide (literal) grassroots level justice. The judges in these courts are usu-ally people of supposed integrity, or elders established in the community; none of the 11 000 Gacaca courts to date

have witnessed any participation by lawyers or trained legal experts. The courts require the full participation of community members, and almost every Rwandan adult has played a role in the system - be it as a witness, defend-ant or attendee of the weekly meetings.

Although systems of communal justice are hardly un-common in traditional societies, the adoption of a modi-fied version of such a system to abritrate over a crime on the scale of ethnic cleansing is a first for international jus-tice.

It would be wrong to represent that the Gacaca courts as a mere exported version of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Rwanda specifically rejected the establish-ment of a TRC as the government did not want to grant amnesty but instead pursue retribution against those re-sponsible for the genocide. If anything, the Gacaca courts echo something of the street committees that sprang up during the heyday of apartheid in South Africa. Justice ap-pears to be in the hands of the people rather than the au-thorities. And while the Rwandan people are not acting in defiance of their government (as the South Africans were), they are controlling a task usually reserved for authority: the deliverance of justice. The Gacaca courts force us to ask ourselves: do we need authority to settle disputes and punish perpetrators?

For some - notably Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch - yes, we do. Their argument against the Gacaca courts hold that their courts ignore international procedure, and exchange the concept of a fair trial for swift retribution. According to a Human Rights Watch report, those being tried in the Gacaca courts are often denied the rights they are entitled to, with the accused being per-suaded to confess to crimes without proper representation by legal counsel. Those who wish to appeal their cases may only do so within the Gacaca system, not the conventional legal system. Given this, one would expect fairly harsh

Lori-Rae van Laren explores how Rwanda’s Gacaca courts have put justice in the hands of the people—and raised difficult questions for conventional court systems.

Rwanda is potentially the only country

where victims and perpetrators live

and work, reasonably peacefully, in

the same communities.

Grassrootsclean-cut.justice,

ABoVeJuvenal Habyarimana, president of Rwanda until his assassination on April 6, 1994.



the thin blue line

punitive measures being enacted upon those defendants who found themselves being found guilty, with or without proper representation. It is surprising, then, to note that most of the sentences handed out have been substituted for community service: a method that both solves the issue of overcrowded prisons and facilitates the reconciliatiory reintegration of genocide perpetrators into society. For other critics, the punishment has not been severe enough - arguing that a year of community service is less-than-just punishment for the murder of an entire Rwandan family.

International watchdogs of justice have also called into question the ability of the courts’ judges, as these are not legal professionals and may lack credibility. There is arguably more room for corruption and interference from government within the Gacaca system than is the case with regular courts, which are (at least in theory) governed by international standards and procedure.

Related to this is the fact that the Gacaca system has only addressed crimes of genocide, and has failed to ac-knowledge revenge killings, or the crimes committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (the current ruling party in Rwanda). The Gacaca courts have been accused of deliv-ering one-sided, victors’ retribution rather than genuine justice.

A further criticism of the system has been that while it was put in place largely to facilitate social reconciliation through compensation for victims, very few have seen the compensation they were promised. Perpetrators could be forced by the Gacaca judges to provide victims with either property or financial restitution as a measure of compen-sation for their loss - but this hasn’t happened. Many in-terviews conducted by Human Rights Watch found that victims were disappointed by the failure of the courts to

The Gacaca courts force us to ask

ourselves: do we need authority

to settle disputes and punish

perpetrators?

deliver on their promise of reparation. On the other hand, those in favour of the system have argued that the lack of compensation is not a poor reflection of the Gacaca courts but rather of the government itself. The courts seem to have held up their end of the bargain in terms of dispens-ing justice, and now wait upon authority to muster the po-litical will to implement compensation.

In spite of the criticism the Gacaca court system has faced, it is true that the system has provided quicker and more expansive justice than organised, authoritative insti-tutions would have been able to. The United Nations’ at-tempt to facilitate justice, in the form of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), proved to be both slow and costly. The ICTR completed only 69 trials at a cost of $1 billion in the same time that the Gacaca courts completed two million cases at a cost of $40 million. More importantly, Rwanda is potentially the only country where victims and perpetrators of a recent genocide live and work together, reasonably peacefully, in the same communities.

It’s worth considering that the criticism the Gacaca courts face is more than anything else an excuse to avoid confronting an uncomfortable truth that Rwanda has un-covered; that maybe people are perfectly capable of deliv-ering their own justice, and aren’t as dependent on author-ity as it would have us believe.

Lori-Rae van Larenis a third year B Soc Sci PPE student.

LeFTNames of genocide victims at the Kigali Memorial Centre.


CTG

august 201218

the thin blue line

Four senior commissioned officers of the Tza-neen police station in Limpopo province found themselves in trouble at the beginning of this year

for manipulating crime statistics. Apparently, in order to fabricate departmental progress, they downgraded crimes like ‘break-ins’ to ‘trespassing’, and ‘murder’ to ‘inquest’. Had they not been caught, statistics released in that area would have reassured its inhabitants that crime was on the decline and the streets were safe once again. Thanks to our justice system, these defenders of the law appeared in court to defend their actions - wasting precious court hours in the process.

When a crime is committed, the top priority tends to be to find out whodunit. Blame and punishment form the basis of our entire justice system, and the statistics on successful convictions act as primary indicators of the ef-

fectiveness of the system. But how effective has this been so far in preventing crime? Even a cursory glance around the suburbs of South Africa, with their high walls, electric fences, and empty streets would seem to answer that; we are living in fear. We move from the safety of our fortified homes to the safety of our cars and drive to the safety of underground parking bays. We sleep in fortified houses more reminiscent of cages than homes.

So, what is the solution? If deploying more policemen and building new prisons is not going to work, how can we hope to reduce, let alone eradicate, crime levels in South Africa?

In the United States, Canada and the UK, the effec-tive policing methods, combined with the advantage of economic prosperity, have led to the development of safe and liveable cities. However, policing has taken on more dimensions than justice systems and armed officers. Over the last few decades, policies that focus on where and why crime takes place have led to more holistic approaches to crime prevention. New attention is being given to where these crimes happen, and how spaces can be made hostile to criminals and reclaimed by communities.

This way of strategising crime prevention is not new.

A broken system

We sleep in fortified houses more reminiscent

of cages than homes.

Where does the justice system’s responsibility start and end – in the prevention of crime, the apprehension of criminals who commit those crimes, or in the ordering of societies to keep such criminals from com-ing into being? Gabrielle Demblon investigates.

the thin blue line


the thin blue line

Gabrielle Demblonis a third year student majoring in English Literature and French.

In fact, as early as the 1960’s, the idea of natural surveillance had begun to be formulated. Here the emphasis was on the fact the urban design at the time neglected the impor-tance of community integration and self-policing. Though largely ignored during the seventies, Crime Prevention through Environmental Design gained momentum in later decades, leading to the now common solutions of street lighting, controlled accessibility to neighbourhoods and residences, as well as developing attractive public spaces.

The related Broken Windows theory, formulated by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, raised the premise that the neglect of minor offences led to the degeneration of urban spaces and subsequent encouragement of more serious crimes. These minor offences included broken windows (obviously) as well as other building defacements such as graffiti, which were seen as indications of a disor-derly society. During the nineties in New York City, Re-publican Mayor Giuliani and the head of New York City Transit police, William Bratton, adopted this idea and be-gan a campaign to clamp down on minor offences. The decade saw massive reductions in NYC’s crime statistics, far outweighing the slower decline reflected in the nation’s other major cities.

A study recently conducted at the University of Gro-ningen in the Netherlands again reinforced this relation-ship between the degeneration of urban environments and criminal activity. In six experiments, researchers observed and compared the behaviour of people presented with the opportunity to steal a small sum of money from a postbox under artificial conditions of order and disorder. When the postbox was clean, 13 percent of people passing by stole the money; when it was covered in graffiti, 27 percent did.

That said, other studies have shown that the more people that are around to witness somebody in distress, the lower the chances of anybody doing anything about it. Look up ‘the bystander effect’ on YouTube to see footage of a man writhing in agony outside the busy Liverpool Street Station in Central London; a full twenty minutes goes by before even one of the many passers by offers to help. The point is that money may buy graffiti-dissolving turpentine, but it can’t buy ubuntu.

Not that I am suggesting that South Africa has found a better strategy…or any strategy for that matter. We spend over R83 billion each year on the criminal justice system, and approximately R40 billion a year on private security – a reaction to the crime that the justice system fails to deal with. While it’s true that crime permeates all levels

of South African society, part of apartheid’s sociospatial legacy ensures that crime remains heavily concentrated in poor black social spaces. Few private security companies have any sort of economic incentive to stray into these ar-eas, and that same legacy of apartheid-era resource distri-bution means that despite lower crime statistics, formerly white areas host the majority of police stations. Add to this the spatial response to the fear of crime that predominates in middle and upper-middle class neighborhoods - call it an ‘architecture of fear,’ – resulting in fortified homes, private guards and gated communities, and you arrive at a level of physical segregation with striking similarities to the old regime.

Physical, but not necessarily ideological segregation; in a 2011 survey on victims of crime, it was found that the majority of people affected by crime believe that crimi-nals were driven by real need, rather than greed or malice. Given this, the overriding response to how government might spend their security budget was not surprising: two-thirds of the country were in favour of social and economic development projects, as opposed to contributing more funding to the criminal justice system. This indicates a cer-tain dissatisfaction, albeit tacit, with the criminal justice system’s ability to solve crime – not simply because of a lack of funds, which would be one key distinction between the South African police force and that of, say, the United States, Canada, and the UK, but due to an inherent flaw in the justice system.

Where the fears of swart gevaar were generated to jus-tify apartheid, today the fear-of-crime rhetoric is used to justify the continuation of a divided society – again in the name of protection. Though the law no longer explicitly upholds racial segregation, the disease of apartheid lingers in South Africa’s high walls and gated communities whose singular purpose continues to be exclusion.

This, fundamentally, is where the justice system trips up, when it becomes a tool for segregation; a system that seeks to allocate blame for antisocial behavior on individu-als, rather than generate a society in which such antisocial behavior isn’t an option – or at least an attractive one.

you arrive at a level of physical segregation with

striking similarities to the old regime.

CTG

Images courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

august 201220

It is a scene from a nightmare: a young man crouches on his knees begging for his life, an angry mob circles him, hurling vicious taunts. A heavy tyre filled with

paraffin is placed around the pleading man’s torso and the crowd bays for his blood. A match is lit and the tyre ex-plodes into a fiery necklace.

Over the past year scenes such as these, last seen dur-ing the xenophobic attacks of 2008, have made a frighten-ing return. In townships such as Khayelitsha, where po-licing has little impact on gang violence and the curbing of more petty felonies, incidents of necklacing are once again becoming common. Our newspapers are rife with residents’ complaints concerning lack of public security in townships. Threatened continually by the looming danger of theft, rape and murder, township communities are tak-ing the law into their own hands. The grim side-effect has been a trend in necklacing, among other equally brutal fa-

talities caused by stoning and repeated knifing. Since April this year it is believed that 14 people have

been killed by vigilantes in Khayelitsha alone. Among these were three different men accused of stealing copper wire, a handbag, and a cellphone respectively. The vigilantes’ victims are usually young men accused of theft, but there have also been occasions where mobs attacked alleged rap-ists and murderers. Common amongst township residents’ complaints is that the police have failed to do their duty as civil protectors and the result has been a case of ‘taking matters into their own hands’ as a means of survival.

‘We are tired of criminals, if killing them helps to re-duce crime, let it be,’ said Thandiwe Mazwayi, a young Monwabisi Park resident. In one incident last year, resi-dents said that they handed over a suspected rapist to the police, but the man was seen the following day out on the street. Occurrences such as this fuel resentment towards the police service, causing communities to exact their own castigation in the belief that the justice system is ineffec-tive.

The eerie similarity between these recent attacks and the early 1990s violent street war between ANC and IFP members has dredged up memories of a time that many

...they handed over a suspected rapist to the

police, but the man was seen the following

day out on the street

the Thin Blue LineBlurring


Ashleigh Furlong looks at the accumulating concern over SAPS corruption, civil brutality and ‘mob justice’.

the thin blue line


would rather forget. During the negotiations leading up to 1994, townships across South Africa were transformed into veritable war zones. Informal ‘street courts’ cropped up throughout these areas where suspected traitors (ac-cused police informants or those of the supposed ‘wrong’ political affiliation) would be found guilty and sentenced usually to death by the infamous necklace. Yet the recent spate of attacks differ from those of Apartheid in that they are responses to criminal activity, as opposed to political tensions bred by oppression.

Residents in Khayelitsha who are the instigators of the present ‘mob justice’ think themselves vigilantes work-ing for the betterment of the community in the face of a law system which fails to solve the rising crisis in criminal activity. The connection at the heart of these sporadic re-currences of necklacing is the issue of inadequate policing. The violence of the post-apartheid attacks was commonly due to residents fearing their neighbours were police in-formants. Like the current attacks, these were indicative of mistrust in the police service, causing a shift in their per-ception as perpetrators instead of protectors.

Yet today in many townships the police are seen nei-ther as protectors nor as perpetrators, but rather as er-roneous entities who lend no support to residents’ safety. When they do interfere, many residents believe it is to extend their power illegitimately, as the accusations of police brutality and corruption indicate. What makes the accusations of the Khayelitsha residents more convincing is Premier Helen Zille’s agreement to establish a commis-sion of inquiry into the vigilantism and police corruption in Khayelitsha. Zille has postponed this inquiry until the police commissioner investigates and compiles her own report.

In the meantime, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) is examining the allegations which thus far have done nothing but confirm the grim reports. The Social Justice Coalition has applauded the IPID’s efforts but continues to stand by their original argument; they believe that to identify police corruption is to ‘merely plug a hole’. According to them, the courts are responsible for failing to convict criminals, snub police corruption, and solve the lawlessness in townships, all of which have cul-minated into the volatile situation that exists today. ‘Mob justice is only done when people do not trust the police,’

The connection at the heart of these sporadic

recurrences of necklacing is the issue of

inadequate policing

said their chairperson Angy Peters.A possible explanation for increased incidents in ‘mob

justice’ may be sourced in the 2009 debacle over Presi-dent Jacob Zuma’s alleged call for the ‘shoot to kill’ polic-ing policy. The government, however, claims that this is a media-coined term and that Zuma merely intended to emphasise the violent nature of South African criminals and the need to employ ‘extraordinary measures’ to curb increasing felonies.

Be that as it may, there was a clear message that the po-lice would not be afraid to open fire on suspected criminals even if it resulted in fatalities, which would (apparently) be an unfortunate outcome to necessary criminal surveil-lance. In this line of argument, the ‘shoot to kill policy’ – as it has become known – would be a means to show South African citizens that the SAPS are doing everything they can to inhibit crime rates. The question remains whether this is merely culpable homicide brandished as criminal justice.

Is increasing ‘mob justice’ a response to anxieties sur-rounding the ‘shoot to kill policy’? In this case, the very policy which was meant to instil confidence in the police, showed citizens that the SAPS were inadequately equipped to deal with criminals in any way other than releasing a line of bullets. In the same vein, many citizens were undoubt-edly influenced by this policy, in which they emulated the use of brute force condoned by ‘shoot to kill’ in the pursuit of criminal justice.

What underlies all this public concern over police cor-ruption and the ‘shoot to kill policy’ is township communi-ties’ increasing disillusionment with the capabilities of the police force supposedly in control of surveillance. Surely, if the justice system was effective, there would be no need for vigilantism? As the concept of ‘justice’ becomes all the more muddied, the most powerful force to rule Cape Town’s townships is fear.

Ashleigh Furlongis in first year studying a Bachelor of Arts in English and Media and Writing.


the thin blue line

CTG

august 201222

The low riding white sedan of neighbourhood watch (NHW) member Gavin Walbrugh creeps through the deserted streets of the Cape Flats at 3am on a Sat-urday. ‘It’s quiet tonight in Lavender Hill,’ he murmurs into his two-way radio.

Turning a sharp corner, the convoy moves into an unlit road. Three hooded figures move briskly away. Fleeting backward glances. Within seconds the convoy surrounds them. Habitually, they line up and lean against the wall: hands apart, legs apart. ‘Why aren’t you in bed?’ asks the interlocutor as she searches the young men. Across the road another member of the NHW stands guard glancing up and down the road like the secu-rity detail of a cash-in-transit van. Only, the rifle he brandishes is nothing more than an

Watch out

photographs and text by gareth smit

august 201224

august 201226

sCienCeordinary paintball gun. But he wears a real bulletproof vest: this

is, after all, night-time in gangland. Only a few weeks ago a member of the NHW in Lavender Hill

was shot and fatally wounded in bed during a failed robbery at-tempt hours before going on patrol. A dramatic increase in turf-wars in recent months between the Junky Funky Kids, the Corner Boys, the Mongrels, and the Bostons over control of the drug trade has resulted in the death of at least twenty-three people including seven children. Seventeen of these deaths have been in Hanover Park and Lavender Hill alone.

In the midst of these deaths the situation has become increas-ingly politicised. Provincial leadership has called on the govern-ment to bring in the South African Defence Force (SADF) to restore order in the community. Attempts to deploy extra resources to the area by the South African Police Force (SAPS) have resulted in what Premier Helen Zille described as ‘an emergency…beyond the ca-pacity of the police to control.’ The stalemate that ensued before the SADF was placed on standby earlier this month is a reflection of the political rifts that exist between a police force controlled by

national government, and a provincial leadership controlled by the opposition.

However, questions of politics appear only briefly in the con-versations between the NHW members as they stop and search everyone roaming the streets of Retreat, CAFDA, and “the Hill” on this numbingly cold evening. Knives, dagga, and lollies (the glass pipe used to smoke methamphetamine or ‘tik’) were the confiscated bounty of the late night wonderings.

These are moms and dads, teachers and businessmen; these are ordinary residents who patrol the streets of their community by night. ‘They respect us more than the police,’ chuckles Walbrugh. The commitment to community of these individuals extends far be-yond late night interrogations of suspicious characters. Every Sat-urday the team runs a soup kitchen in the area, feeding more than a thousand people. Often, they encounter the very same individuals they searched the previous night. ‘I tell them: ‘Out there you can be a Junky Funky, or a Corner Boy or whatever, but when you stand in this line, you’re a person.’ CTG


Domo Arigato, Sergeant Roboto

In July 2012, the first police representative to enter Batman gunman James Holmes’ apartment was a squat robot on wheels. Holmes had opened fire on an audi-

ence attending a screening of The Dark Knight Rises the night before, claiming the lives of twelve people.

Wearing a gasmask, Holmes had thrown tear gas into the crowd before opening fire with a variety of automatic weapons – all purchased legally. These included automatic rifles, shotguns and pistols. Upon his arrest, Mr Holmes was in possession of these weapons and informed police that he was ‘the Joker’ – a villain from the Batman fran-chise. Shortly afterwards, Holmes – a former neuroscience Phd student at the University of Colorado – informed po-lice that his apartment was rigged with explosives designed

to kill anyone who entered it. The squat little robot sent into Holmes’ apartment was

a member of the Adams County Sherriff ’s Department Bomb Disposal Squad. It was sent in through the build-ing’s third floor window. From there, with the help of an operator using a remote control, it was able to disarm the tripwire covering the front door.

After the initial bomb had been disarmed, the robot removed computers and other evidence from the apart-ment before disarming the rest of the improvised explo-sive devices. These explosives consisted of 30 aerial shells packed with gunpowder, two containers filled with flam-mable liquid accelerant and numerous bullets dispersed around the apartment so that they would explode in the resultant fire. Without the help of the robot, police enter-ing the apartment would have been in serious danger.

As the US-led campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan drag on, bomb disposal robots are being increasingly used for military purposes. Specifically, they are used to defuse im-provised explosive devices (IEDs) left along roadsides in the hope of blowing up US convoys. Some of these robots have also had their standardized mechanical arms, with pincers on the end, removed and replaced with firearms. However, the effectiveness of the gun-toting robots has yet to be determined.

Either way, it is clear that these stocky little robots can multitask. And when it comes to robotic police work, bomb disposal is only one aspect of the job. The other ma-jor area is surveillance.

Surveillance robots tend to be sneaky – the suspect being surveyed is, after all, not supposed to be aware of the beady eyes of the law observing his or her illicit activities. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes, robotic surveillance is fairly obvious. The perfect example of this is the Robo-kopa, or Robocop.

Robo-kopa is not to be confused with its dated Hol-lywood namesake. For a start, it’s Russian and its real name is R Bot 001 –Robo-kopa being the affectionate nickname bestowed by its comrades in the Perm (a city east of Mos-cow) police force. Also, it’s not so much a gun-wielding cyborg with questionable acting abilities, as it is a 5 foot 9, bullet-shaped, remote-controlled robot on wheels.

R Bot 001’s beat is the city centre, with two primary functions; first, it keeps the area under surveillance using the five cameras attached to its body, and secondly, it is-sues public statements, urging citizens to heed the law and warning them against the dangers of public drunkenness. All in all, it’s quite a visibile, versatile fellow.

Robo-kopa and robots of similar build and function obviously serve as a fairly overt form of surveillance. In this, they are similar to the infamously extensive and – some say – invasive CCTV network in London. We find a more subtle form of robotic reconnaissance in aerial sur-veillance – usually accomplished with the use unmanned flying vehicles or UAVs.

UAVs, or drones, are an uncomfortable point of dis-cussion, largely because of their association with the American military. It’s not an unreasonable association, either; while UAVs are, for the most part, used by the American military for reconnaissance missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are also used to blow up the odd sus-pected terrorist, and sometimes anyone else who might be in the vicinity.

That said, law enforcement agencies are increasingly using UAVs for day to day surveillance of urban areas, the idea being that they can observe crimes as they happen. This function is becoming more popular as research into developing smaller and smaller drones proceeds. For ex-ample, researchers in Holland – with the collaboration and funding of the Dutch police – have created a UAV which not only looks like but also mimics the flight patterns of birds. This, obviously, serves as a handy reconnaissance tool. With suspects mistaking the robot for a bird, they continue their illegal shenanigans on camera. The only hiccup this particular project has met with is that of low-hanging tree branches.

While the thought of police surveillance drones – bird-like or otherwise – zooming around in the sky would spook anybody whose even heard of Orwell, it is impor-tant to remember that reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering are an important part police work. Police forces around the world operate best when they are able to gather as much information as possible before taking action. This protects not only the lives of the law-abiding public, but also those of the police officers themselves. In this, accu-rate information-gathering robots are just as important as bomb-defusing ones, and both look set for increasingly important roles in the future of policing around the world.

Rob Attwellis an Honours student in History.

Without the help of the robot, police entering the

apartment would have been in serious danger.

Robot police are becoming less a matter of science fiction, and more a matter of fact – which could either be the start an orwellian nightmare, or a move towards a safer environment for everybody (except the robots). Rob Attwell investigates.

sCienCe

CTG


august 201228

Of milk and menIn a world where the government controls all of your options – from the ballot box to the milk carton – are you really free? Charlotte Scott examines the philosophy of choice.

Imagine you feel like a bubblegum SteriStumpie. You go to your local kiosk and buy one. Imagine further that all other flavours, except bubblegum, are widely

known to be bad for your health – they’re laced with nico-tine, say. So you go into the store and make the responsible choice by purchasing bubblegum. This is commendable. Hooray for you.

Now imagine you go to the shop again with the same prior intention of buying a bubblegum SteriStumpie, only to find the shop only sells bubblegum flavour. The govern-ment has banned all other flavours. Though you’ve bought the same thing, is your action still commendable? Not re-ally. You didn’t have a choice. So, the government has in-fringed on your freedom, right?

But now imagine you’re addicted to nictoine. You go to a store with the full colourful array of SteriStumpie fla-vours and you want to purchase the bubblegum flavour. But your addiction forces you to buy the strawberry. You have more options, but, in a way, you’re still not free.

Now imagine the nicotine-addicted version of your-self walks into the shop with only bubblegum flavour. You are not free to buy whatever flavour you choose, but you are being helped in your mission to kick your habit, which could subsequently make you more free. The government, by restricting your options, has, oddly, increased your free-dom.

This discussion around positive and negative freedom (minus the SteriStumpies) goes back at least to Kant, and was explored in depth by Isaiah Berlin. We can think about freedom as the absence of external obstacles, like in the first example, or as the ability of the agent to satisfy their true interests, like in the second.

Often we think of the government as being merely a necessary infringement on our liberty in order to achieve security and organisation. Liberals tend to argue its role should be confined merely to enforcing our negative free-doms: absence of crime, abuse, exploitation and general infringements on our freedom from others.

But this doesn’t include harm we can do to our own freedom, like the case of the addict. Under the positive conception of freedom, more government control makes you freer; it allows you to be who you really want.

But is there a problem with this conception of positive freedom? Berlin argued that the reasoning behind such

freedoms leads paradoxically to an authoritarian conclu-sion.

It begins with the idea of a divided self: an individual with conflicting desires. The addict both wants and doesn’t want to buy the strawberry SteriStumpie. Both desires originate from within himself, yet we think one of them to be more him than the other. We could say this is because he identifies with the desire not to take nicotine, rather than his desire to consume it. We also believe the desire to not take nicotine is rational. For nicotine, substitute any addictive substance broadly understood to be bad for you.

Similar reasoning can be applied to all kinds of con-flicting desires. We all want to be healthy. And to do this we need to go to the gym. But often we don’t, not because of an addiction but because we irrationally choose to spend that time doing things we value less than our health. Imagine the government could incentivise (or force) you to go to gym, you would finally be able to realise your goals and you would be more free in a positive sense.

But what if some people are more rational than oth-ers? Then those people would know better than us what we really wanted. The rational person (or government) could therefore be justified in coercing the irrational because that person is freer because of it, thus liberation could in-deed require authoritarianism.

Some philosophers object to this conclusion on the grounds that one can be free to do what one does not de-sire to do. If freedom is merely determined by how many of our desires we are able to satisfy, oppressed groups could become ‘freer’ simply by training themselves to desire only that which they can achieve. Slavery would no longer be an infringement so long as you come to desire only that which you are allowed.

Gerald MacCallum argued Berlin’s dichotomy be-tween positive and negative to be a false one. For MacCal-lum, freedom is a triadic relation between three things: an agent, certain preventing conditions, and certain doings or becomings of the agent.

And yes, both negative and positive definitions of freedom agree with this. Freedom for MacCallum is both negative and positive, depending on your interpretation of the extension of the above variables. But the extension can still be interpreted in contradictory ways. Is the addict freer when there are fewer SteriStumpie’s? Or is s/he freer when s/he has more choice?

If we cannot decide on a unanimous answer to this question ourselves, we should be very wary of letting gov-ernment answer for us.

Charlotte Scottis a 3rd Year studying a BSocSci, PPE.

Liberation could indeed require

authoritarianism

philosophy

CTG



orwell said the government would control what we read and think with fear and misdirection; Huxley thought that governments would keep us from wanting to read or think anything at all with a steady stream of distracting entertainment. Sofia Monteiro asks: which is the bigger threat - terror or Twitter?

South Africans have a pretty good track record when it comes to protesting against authoritarian governments collectively - but in the two decades

since our first democratic election, we appear to have be-come complacent in our democracy. Did that collective drive end when we appeared to have secured democracy?

Democratic representation seems endangered by the various government and private interests seeking to as-sert themselves. In a recent effort to stop the Protection of Information Bill being passed, participants of Black Tuesday marched in defiance of a bill that is a throwback to the kinds of pervasive censorship imposed not so many decades before by the apartheid government. Despite the familiarity of the cause, only a couple hundred people were present, a shadow of the vital and forceful protests of before. It would appear that many South Africans are as distracted as Huxley’s Brave New World predicted. The real problem seems to be less an imposition of Orwellian institutional censorship than a generation of citizens indif-ferent to such censorship.

Orwell feared those who sought to deprive the public of information, to censor literature, and conceal the truth. Huxley feared that people would become indifferent to the truth in the face of too much information. The Orwellian threat emerges from authority, but to Huxley human na-ture is the enduring threat to freedom.

Even a vague familiarity with world history makes it apparent that Orwell’s concerns are as old as the search for power. It is when overt, restrictive threats to the public are supplemented by public inaction and disinterest, however, that the real tragedies stain history – consider the German bystanders of the Holocaust.

The persistent xenophobia in South Africa – most re-cently seen in the persecution of Somali shop owners by local township residents – is evidence of the denial of the government’s ineptitude at service delivery and job crea-tion. Instead, a scapegoat is targeted. Human nature, again, is chiefly responsible for diminishing the stability of society by alienating people for being foreign.

Huxley satirises the view that any dominant culture sees outsiders as barbaric. In doing so he alludes to the process of making foreigners’ ‘otherness’ so complete that it is entirely impossible to empathise with them. This speaks to the appalling violence carried out against for-eigners by poverty-stricken South Africans as a reaction to the monumental inequity of the system.

Placing Orwell and Huxley’s visions for the future alongside one another demonstrates the extent to which the two scenarios exist simultaneously. We concurrently face threats from authority and ourselves. Crime is ob-

servably abundant, ubiquitous in both media and collec-tive consciousness - and paradoxically, our police force is often the subject of crime reports. The SAPS is a seemingly schizophrenic entity. It is Orwellian in nature – unlawfully brutal, exacting harsh punishment, with police officers often criminals themselves – yet also Huxley-like, exces-sively indulgent, inefficient, and not present when needed.

The political environment in South Africa makes clear that indifference and outrage exist in parallel. It is as much a problem of the public as it is of the police force and gov-ernment. While the Black Tuesday march may have been lackluster, the mobilisation of trade union members and the incendiary support for popular youth leaders shows that while South Africans haven’t forgotten how to protest, the priorities of interest groups have changed (or they’ve been distracted by more controversial, yet less pertinent issues, as Huxley might suggest).

An international example of a society collectively tak-ing action and defying the passive complacence described by Huxley is the online revolution and election of a new government in Iceland during the financial crisis. Interest-ingly, it is also an example of an Orwellian cover up as the entire event went unreported by world news media.

Iceland’s government cabinet resigned after the coun-try went bankrupt at the start of the financial crisis in 2008. While the reasons behind it were reported in pass-ing, the drama that ensued was not broadcast, ostensibly so that this idea wouldn’t spark a global movement in other failing European states.

The Icelanders regained their sovereign rights through collective participatory democracy that eventually led to the drafting of a new constitution entirely carried out on the Internet. Today, the people of Greece (with Spain, Por-tugal and Italy waiting in the wings) have been advised that the privatisation of the inefficient, indebted public sector is the only solution to their economic woes. In the mean-time, Iceland is recovering from its financial collapse in a manner generally thought unimaginable.

While the BBC, CNN and other mainstream news channels eagerly report on the Arab Spring, the political revolution in their own neighbourhood remains peculiarly sidelined. Selective reporting aside, the Iceland example offers the hope that there will continue to be people driv-en to fight for societal rights, in the face of an Orwellian clamp down on liberty and a Huxley-type saturation of information.

Sofia Monteirois a 3rd Year studying a BSocSci in Psychology and Economics.

We concurrently face threats from

authority and ourselves

Orwell vs.

Huxleyarts

CTG


august 201230

I mean, to start with, nobody likes speaking to you. Nobody ever calls you just to say ‘hello’. Your mother only calls when she needs to explain how three bottles

of cough syrup accidentally fell into her purse when she was hanging out at the pharmacy.

On the odd occasion that you do interact with people, it’s with a couple of kids complaining about how you’ve failed to keep someone safe from being mugged in a dead-end side street in Green Point at four in the morning, or it’s with a couple of other kids you arrested for hanging around dead-end side streets in Green Point and looking suspicious. In neither of these scenarios does anybody like you.

It’s hard being a cop in South Africa.It’s taken as a given by the public at large that you are

a corrupt, racist, barely literate doughnut-absorbing bully whose chief hobbies include overly-vigorous patdowns, herding the homeless and staying the hell out of Khayelit-

sha. The public at large isn’t entirely wrong; where there’s smoke there’s fire, or in this case where there’s smoke there is a thousand-rand case of Cuban cigars quietly removed from the evidence locker.

It hurts being called a pig by your niece.It sort of sucks finding out that your job is nowhere

near as awesome as The Wire, and nowhere near as en-tertaining as Police Academy II. Things are a little like Police Academy IV, though, in that both you and the film have a more or less 0% approval rating. And now they’ve launched that new copumentary, South African Crimes Uncovered, so people actually sort of expect you to solve crimes and stuff. You know, instead of arresting people for chewing gum on the Gautrain, or failing to investigate inci-dents of lesbians being beaten unconscious because those aren’t ‘big cases.’

That fancy new R600m forensic lab they’ve built over at Plattekloof doesn’t ease up the pressure to find folk to

arrest, either – although here you are sort of helped out by the fact that South Africa has one of the lowest accu-racy requirements worldwide for ‘confirming’ matching thumbprints, meaning you get to arrest people for having thumbs that sort of look like thumbs belonging to crimi-nals. Otherwise it’s probably the boyfriend.

Of course, whenever you get a chance to do any real police work, which is to say the sort of police work that involves shooting at gangs in rural areas, the government gets all antsy and tries to call in the army instead – which sucks, because those guys get to shoot stuff all the time.

So it’s hard.It would all be more or less tolerable if things were

more or less stable at the office; that way it could be sort of like a boys-in-blue-up-against-the-world sort of situa-tion, fighting crime together in a live-free-and-die-young, hold-the-line-love-isn’t-always-on-time kind of fashion. Except the commissioner’s office has had a revolving door installed to accommodate, what, three different commis-sioners in as many years? I mean, yes, there was some prestige involved in having Jackie Selebi siphon funds from both the South African Police Service and INTERPOL at the same time, and it was sort of cool how they got to ‘shoot to kill’ under Cele – normally they don’t even get to touch the guns. But the latest hire, Mangwashi Phiyega, hasn’t had any sort of policing experience at all, being only broadly familiar with such core concepts as ‘crime preven-tion,’ ‘what habeas corpus is,’ and ‘how to accept a bribe.’ And she’s a woman! Which irritates sexist cops even more than it irritates sexist civilians.

Add to that the fact that Selebi is living out his fifteen-year jail sentence for corruption in a mansion because of medical parole, which is really just super-effective for keeping other high-ranking cops honest. Because it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the link between accepting huge bribes and contracting some obscure kidney disease that renders you barely able to finish an 18-hole round of golf.

I guess what I’m saying is, the next time you get pulled over by a doughnut-dusting, neo-fascist tool of state op-pression, and you feel like reminding them of that fact – bear in mind that they already have a sort of hard time as it is.

Also bear in mind that they come armed with pepper spray, and guns, and need only a partial match on a thumb-print to arrest you for something or other. Chewing gum, probably.

It’s hard being a cop

Liam Kruger walks a mile in their combat boots

It hurts being called a pig by your niece

Curtain Call

liam krugeris an Honours student in English Literature.

Illustration byDaniel Rautenbach

CTG


Globalist

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You will be in charge of the website. �is involves nding and coordinating writers for the website; uploading selected magazine articles and uploading the nal version of the magazine onto the website at the end of the term.

ree Content Editors

Content Editors are responsible for eliminating grammatical errors, checking the �ow of articles and ensuring content is up-to-scratch. You will edit about 6 articles per edition as they circulate among the editors to be edited and re-edited so that the nal product is spotless!

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If you are interested in helping us write, edit, upload, market, format and manage UCT’s only international a�airs magazine, send us a brief CV with your contact details specifying for which position you are applying and we will be in contact.

new team members for 2013 to keep the Globalist as informative, in-depth and interesting as possible!

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Centre For Film and Media StudiesMaster Of Arts Degrees 2013

• Master’sininAfricanCinemabycourseworkanddissertation

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We are pleased to announce three new MA degree streams starting in 2013:

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• Master’sinFilmStudiesbydissertationonly

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the thin blue line volume 7 issue 3

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