Not interested in politics? Not interested in how the government spends its time - and your money? Really? Think we live in a nice, quiet, safe country where all is right with the world? The government is benevolent and doing its best to deliver all the things it claims to? Think it lives up to our Constitution? Think it cares about all the people who live in South Africa? Think there is no reason to be concerned with anything to do with politics?
Who is still naive enough to think we aren't already living in a police state? Come on, don't be shy - put your hands up.
Think about it for a moment. No, really.
The South African Police "Service" have resumed the use of a military rank system - and their "General" has told them for all intents and purposes to shoot first and ask questions later - and to shoot to kill. People accused of crimes, innocent or not, spend years in prison awaiting trial. The recent spate of police brutality and excessive force and unjustifiable violence has resulted in comparisons between the current Police "Service" and the old Apartheid-era Police "Force" - and these comparisons have been made not just by the average citizen - but also by those formerly oppressed by the old Police Force. Looking at it closely, one can understand perfectly why.
Two weeks back, a local activist in Ficksburg was brutally assaulted and then shot dead by a group of policemen in riot gear - this despite the fact that the man was not even resisting them. The fact that this transpired openly in front of press cameras and journalists, speaks of a shameful devaluation of human life and threatens to redefine the term "transparency". Last week, an unarmed civilian was shot dead by a policeman in the street outside a police station while in her private vehicle, apparently after colliding with a parked police vehicle. It is as though the average police officer these days doesn't care a damn what they do and who sees it and knows about it - because the "boss" said it is "okay" and they are after all, "only doing their job". Also last week, it was reported that a policeman at a crime scene refused to call an ambulance for a wounded victim despite repeated pleas to do so because "she was going to die anyway". And yes, the victim did die - but who made this policeman an expert in the medical field? The fact that she did die doesn't prove him right - if anything, it makes him complicit. So first we had "shoot to kill" - now we have cops who think they are qualified to decide whether shooting victims will die or not. We now have police officers who seem to think they are the law and they are above it.