A Touch of Pink to the Blue

In less than a decade we have yet another National Police Commissioner. Indulge me as I go down the list of so-called top cops who’ve been allowed to wear (and tear up) the blue uniform. We had Jackie Selebi who, at first, seemed to bring a renewed urgency to crime-fighting, but gradually became mired in his own brand of crime. We were willing to overlook the glaring fact that he wasn’t, in anyway, a career cop, capable of operationally guiding the real foot-soldiers of the police service. He lumbered on in his position, even becoming INTERPOL President and, granted, making small strides in making South Africa safer (-ish). Tim Williams then served as the acting commissioner, while Selebi drifted in and out of courts and controversy. Williams, was for the most part, invisible; possibly because he was trying to do some overwhelming damage control in the wake of Selebi. Years passed. Levels of crime vacillated between stable and disturbingly high. Then came the new sheriff in town, Bheki Cele - he of the Stetsons, John Wayne swagger and machine gun-mouth. Again, he was not a career officer, but yet another political deployee, who, in the end, proved completely inept in his handling of the day-to-day administration of the SAPS. I believe he did, in small ways, build up some morale among the men and women in blue. But his macho, oafish way of doing the job helped sully his and the police’s image even. His detractors would argue, he imbued many officers with a dangerous bravado (much like his own), leading some to shoot, beat, kick and bully their way to a brutal form of crime-fighting. The next acting commissioner, Nhlanhla Mwkwanazi, while only in his position a few short months, seemed to do all he can to mitigate the cluster bombs flying around the service. At the same he had the uneviably task of having to defend the abortions of arrogance and power left by Cele. Richard Mdluli, the flagrant abuse of power, corruption, Cele’s ongoing woes; They came fast and furious, and this true career policeman, who seemed capable, just couldn’t manage the skulduggery.

Cele’s dismissal is now official. Mkwanazi, well, he was always just serving in an acting capacity, clearly and sadly failed to impress President Jacob Zuma to any degree of convincing the him a rank-and-file officer is needed to run the SAPS. All the above-mentioned personalities had one visible thing in common – they are men, imbued with testosterone-machismo and host of other male traits, including the refusal to admit it when they are are wrong. We yet again have a new commissioner who has no experience in the field of dealing with crime. The new ‘Top Cop’, yet another deployee of President Jacob Zuma (ultimately the ANC), Riah Phiyega, does however, have an impressive CV, at least taken at face value. We can only wait and see if she can return some dignity to the battered SAPS. Selebi and Cele have left the service looking like a joke; and at this stage the public is left saying ‘Anyone must be better than those two!’

While I view Phiyega in a cynical light (purely based on her not having served in the SAPS and worked her way through the ranks to the top), I do harbour some optimism. She’s a woman (and no, I won’t launch into some feminist praise-singing about how females should be given the chance to prove themselves in all spheres of life, despite their gender. I’ve always believed that anyway). A woman at the head of the police service may just, at this stage, given the mess left by the men who preceded her, be able to bring a much needed woman’s touch to the organisation. By this, I mean, a true sense of organisation and management, which most women innately seem to possess. As a member of the fairer sex, she’s unlikely to be cavalier and may dispense with the reckless machismo, 'mine-is-bigger-than-yours' attitude displayed by her predecessors. This ‘boys don’t cry’ adage which permeates the service, has done very little in creating competent officers. Sensitivity among most law enforcement officials is sorely lacking. Almost weekly we read with horror of victims of rape, particularly of a sexual nature, becoming ' secondary victims' at the hands of officers. In this regard, a lady at the helm could use her position to remind cops, a well-rounded officer needs is both a competent and sensitive one (by sensitive I don't mean in the limp-wristed, flower-arranging sense). Phiyega could/should be open to taking advice (unlike most men who won't even ask for directions), such as perhaps not making any mention of shooting to kill or other moronic quotable quotes. As a woman, perhaps she can bring a true human touch, one which many women have, in instilling dignity back to SAPS members, instead of only urging them just to fight crime, but also to deal with the consequences. For too long the old SAPS adage and mentality of ‘Skiet, skop en donner’ has been enforced and permeated, often leaving victims forgotten and adding to the scourge we label crime.

The Global Futility Index

As we South Africans gaze into our navels contemplating how unhappy we seem to be regarded by yet another pointless study/survey, we now appear to have one more thing to ponder - the country doesn't seem to be as peaceful as it was in the past. SA is ranked 127th on what's called a Global Peace Index, drawn up by some grouping called the Institute for Economics and (cue: drum roll) Peace. If the organisation is to be believed and taken seriously, the nation has dropped 29 places from 98 in 2007. Yet this same 'study' reckons regions such as the Middle East have shown improvements in 'levels of overall peacefulness'. By 'overall' I can only assume this refers to a general, gross and possibly naive glossing over of the facts and events of the past 2-years in a region gripped by immovable dictators, fundamentalist terrorisim and swept up into the now cliched Arab Spring. Certain areas of the Middle East, which have been paralysed into a catatonic state of upheaval for decades, remain exactly that, frozen into historical submission, arrested by violence and numbed into helplessness; to a pint where I doubt studies into peace would have any equal standing next to levels of fear and anxiety . You needn't think too hard of examples like Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, to counter the findings of an index which has for years claimed to 'gauge' peace. An ordinary Syrian, marooned in war-ravaged Homs, would have to summon up a guffaw out f his/her war-weary countenance if presented with the findings of this index and its claim that the very same region the study believes is now 'generally more peaceful' is the same one gripped by carnage on par with any conflict seen over the past decade. Should the GPI be declared null and void from the outset? Or should its authors simply be pinched back to reality? It makes for a morbidly amusing read, at the very least, along with the likes of a Global Happiness study. It could prompt some other haphazardly thrown together organisation to start working on the something like the Worldwide Nosepicking Index or a Global Coughing Study. I recall a research labelled the 'Look Alike Study' conducted among married couples to see if they start to resemble each other over time. Then there was the  Curvy Hips study which attempted to gauge the intelligence of women by their waist measurements. All 'scientific' researches, carried out to... well, I can only assume to give people in white coats some respite trying to find a cure for cancer. I propose the Global Futility Index, which can study, gauge, research and ponder the uselessness of studies which seem to mock intelligence and common sense; an index which could take into account how much time is wasted by navel-gazers and pretend-intellectuals who seem to have too much time on their hands and too little tolerance for reality.

　

A Sigh for the Times

A sigh - a type of paralinguistic respiration in the form of a deep and usually audible exhalation of air, at least that's how Wikipedia defines this every day, banal act of the mouth. I’ve heard it being called ‘breath venting’’ and while I can’t be sure who termed it that, I’ve settled on it as a far more apt and colloquial definition. We sigh everyday of our life, often without any thought being given to this prosaic escape of breath. A sigh is usually formed as an expression of relief, but is certainly not limited to this. It's an expression of grief and yearning in some cases. For me, in most instances it's a distinct and passive act of anger and frustration, a substitute, of sorts, for physical displays of aggression. The amount of times I've been told to breathe, close my eyes and count to 10 when confronted with aggression (both from myself and from others) cannot be counted. I opt instead to audibly sigh, giving voice to the internal rage fermenting inside... let's just say I sigh too much these days in moments of ill temper. I sigh in concert with a roll of my eyes skywards (a brain scan, as my parents have come to call it). I find I need to give as much expression to my daily displeasure with so many aspects of reality so as to give life and catharsis to my temper. My sighs seem to escalate at around 7pm every evening when a summary of the country and worlds news is visually broadcast to the nation. These everyday subtle, soft explosions of air come in quick succession as the daily updates on the ANC, that now obligatory function of our domestic journalism, muscles its way into the news agenda. Deep breaths follow as I brace myself for an onslaught of mindlessness political rhetoric from ANC apparatchiks. Most recently this was provided by those party faithful in that almost forgotten province of the Free State. As Ace Magashule, re-elected as commissar of the ANC in the province, assaulted the greater intelligence of those watching the news with his 'victory' speech, the sighs kept coming, erupting now into an almost staccato of respiratory attacks. I scanned to the competing local TV news channel only to find an even more dumbed down version of the coverage. Fists wave, threats exploding, rhetoric belching, songs oozing... my sighs bleeding from my lungs along with my eyes, somersaulting in my head. I tried to find focus, steeling myself for what may come next. And then Jacob Zuma made an appearance. He did little to re-instill any logic in these now drawn out news inserts. The sighs now arrested themselves in my mouth and lungs, queuing to escape through my pursed lips. I awaited any sign of (brain)life in the piffle he delivered. All I could discern was a slight air of desperation around him, not all that visible, unless you take into account how he seems to have aged quite deliberately and suddenly (at least to my observations) of late. He too must've sent a few thousand sighs into the ether in recent months, what with Julius Malema, a cabinet reshuffle and the axing of Bheki Cele. Sighs of yearning for a simpler life, perhaps? Sighs of relief? Not necessarily given the ever increasing calls for his head. The above-mentioned news broadcasts eventually proceeded to actual news of worth and purpose, be it sullen and disappointing (the very nature of South African current affairs). Schools in Limpopo not receiving textbooks would have to do. Visuals of warehouses bursting with undelivered learning material underscored the reporters’ voices. My sighs now developed a slight retching reflex. As Basic Education minister, Angie Motshekga, blunders through this latest scandal I detected a taste of bile in my sighs, now clearly audible amid my concern. Of course no news broadcast would be complete without some nattering on the ANCYL. My eyes glazed over with a soothing numbness. Cue the sigh... of (that any news on the League only enters bulletins as an almost 'Meanwhile, in other news...)? Is it a sigh of grief? Of course not! A sigh of yearning for the League to rediscover some intellect and logic? Never! It seems forever lost in the wake of Malema. I could only conclude this latest volley of signs could be a sign of growing indifference in a country caught up in the banality of the ANC's self-centeredness. I sigh exhaustively these as almost every conversation I enter into lands up choosing some aspect of the party's woes and/or ineptitude as the topic. I exhale to sigh to find patience in having to deal with these issues, created mostly through the party’s own devices, but never fully acknowledged as its own doing. Sigh with me now (those of you sad enough to be reading this rant) in grief, relief and yearning as we try to move on to something more worthy - possibly an alcoholic beverage, pharmaceutical product even - to deal with the last half of 2012, which will be littered and