LETTERS
Deprivation root cause in rape, murder
THE recent increase in the murder and rape of women and children, particularly in our black communities, has culminated in an outcry full of revulsion.
Numerous ideas and suggestions have been expressed about how to stop this.
I followed almost all which has been said and suggested, and nothing has been said about the fundamental root cause of this social malady we find ourselves in.
We have become like a person who continues taking Panado tablets for a headache that does not stop.
Police action, death penalty, castration and all other forms of brutality that have been espoused will never deter this putrid behaviour from continuing.
Nobody, except the EFF MP who stood and addressed the house in Xhosa, hit the nail on the head.
So what is the solution? First, we have to look at where it all started.
The first thing that colonists do when they arrive in a foreign land, is to confiscate land by force. In South Africa, this happened in 1652.
Land is life; it is food; it is where you establish a family unit; it is wealth. You deprive a people of their land, you dehumanise them.
The second thing that follows after conquering the land is to trivialise, denigrate, decimate the conquered people’s culture; their customs and traditions.
Furthermore, without land, housing becomes a massive problem. Families get crammed into tiny shacks in ill-serviced locations with little or no privacy between adult and child.
Faced with these circumstances, that’s where morality starts breaking down. With these values lost, the family unit breaks down too.
Communities lose their self-worth and respect. Parenthood loses its authority.
Girls see nothing wrong in having babies out of wedlock because boys are no longer taught the right route on how, as a young man, to behave towards maidens.
A diabolical culture of men calling themselves “blessers” and running around with children younger than their own daughters has become prevalent.
Children as young as 14 years old become mothers, the babies born of these girls have no future in education and society.
Without education comes joblessness and hopelessness.
It becomes a vicious circle culminating in crime and general socio-economic deprivation.
When we became free in 1994, one had thought that our government would have identified this massive problem and given it top priority.
Instead, a cabinet minister blames the devil, how preposterous, while some make hysterical speeches of deploying police all over the country.
All these promises have been made before.
Restore our people’s dignity, provide site and service for housing, provide schools that are well equipped, regenerate African morality, reduce unemployment to single-digit figures, embark aggressively on inter-African regional trade, grow gross domestic product by 5% annually, and address with great urgency the socio-economic deprivation, then the police will be effective in their endeavour. Sunny Way, Kelvin