Sihlwayi overreaches
SOUTH African society is one of the most violent in the world, excluding countries at war. Newspapers such as ours report daily on how innocent citizens are traumatised and killed in violent crimes such as murder, rape and robbery.
As a result people feel unsafe and held to ransom by criminals. And if people feel backed into a corner, they may do whatever they think it takes to defend themselves and their loved ones against criminals.
Earlier this month – on September 2 – an Eastern Cape mother discovered her 27-year-old daughter allegedly being raped in Zwartwater near Komani. Shed fatally stabbed one man and wounded two others.
The mother now faces murder and attempted murder charges.
We will not go into the merits of the case – that is the job of the court. The bottom line is that no one has the right to take the law into their own hands. However, we can never truly know how we might react unless we have walked in the shoes of the man – or woman – concerned.
Citizens across race, age and class categories have however, rallied squarely and generously behind the family, describing the 56-year-old mother as a hero – a lioness – for protecting her daughter.
Non-government organisations and ordinary citizens have offered financial, legal and psychological support to them.
By midday yesterday, R118,383 93 had been donated by 179 people within a week, which will be given to the family. A lawyer has also offered to represent her pro bono.
Social development MEC Nancy Sihlwayi has also stepped in and promised government would do everything it could to help the family.
She also promised the 27-year-old woman much-needed financial support towards studying for a human resources national diploma.
At the same time, she said: “We have noticed there are people collecting money for the family without even being connected with the family. They are celebrating this family’s grief and making money and they must stop that.
“We say to those people there is no need to collect the money. There is a government here which will work with the family through this.”
Sihlwayi may have justifiable concerns about unscrupulous people trying to milk the situation.
But she oversteps herself. She cannot lay claim to the mother and her family and say that since the government will help them, no one else may. In fact, the message South Africans are sending about government’s failure to protect them in the first place is loud and clear – “We are sick and tired of crime. Enough is enough”.
For citizens to feel safe, the police and courts need to work more effectively together to convict alleged criminals, and government, in its entirety, needs to function optimally to reduce the probability of crime.