Death of Jeremy Gordin a reminder of crime epidemic

I was no older than seven when I first saw a gun with my own eyes.

It belonged to my uncle Godfrey, a notorious criminal who was later shot and killed during an attempted robbery in Soweto.

Godfrey and a friend of his had been trying to rob private security guards of their guns at the Dobsonville Shopping Complex.

The guns were intended to be used in the commission of a crime that they had planned — likely a heist.

My uncle was only 23 when he died.

I was barely 10 years old when I first witnessed an incident of mob justice.

A man who was accused of being responsible for a crime spree around Meadowlands was apprehended by the community and beaten to death.

To this day, I can vividly remember a young man throwing a huge rock directly at his head. He died a painful death.

I would witness another mob justice incident a few years later.

This time around, the young man would be necklaced.

As the tyre was being placed around his neck, and someone was shouting “bring the petrol!”, children much younger than me stood there with a look of joyful anticipation in their eyes.

As a student at Rhodes University in Makhanda, I once walked into my apartment to find it emptied by criminals who would never be caught.

Everything I owned, the food in my fridge — it was all gone.

I have also had my laptop snatched from me as I walked the less than 300 metres from the university to my apartment, after having spent most of the night completing assignments. I have had my car radio and battery stolen.

And I have endured different forms of violence in the hands of both men and women, family and strangers.

Crime has defined my life, just as it defines the lives of every South African.

And like many South Africans, I have become desensitised to it.

Or at least that’s what I thought.

The brutal murder of renowned award-winning journalist Jeremy Gordin shook me to the core.

Gordin, a former associate editor of The Sunday Independent and former editor of the Daily Sun, was killed during a robbery at his house in Johannesburg.

The criminals stole his television set and car.

In the months leading up to his murder, he had experienced two burglaries.

He would later publish an article about the experience, bemoaning the levels of crime in our country, which he described as casting “a frighteningly gigantic shadow over life in SA”.

He had no way of knowing that just four months after publishing the article, he would die in the hands of merciless criminals.

I’m shaken and angered by Gordin’s death.

I’m scared of the cruelty of criminals, who killed a 70-year-old man over a mere TV set and a car that was likely insured

But more than this, I’m apoplectic with fear.

I’m scared of how easy it is to take another person’s life in our country — and to get away with it.

I’m scared of the cruelty of criminals, who killed a 70year-old man over a mere TV set and a car that was likely insured.

They could’ve just taken these without killing him.

His life was worth far more than these things.

His contribution to journalism and to our democracy was worth so much more.

He was worth so much more to his wife, children, family and friends.

But they killed him. They killed him because human life is cheap in this country.

They killed him because they could.

And none of us are immune. None.