The ANC and Ideology – I

It’s strange how even the best of intentions can produce results contrary to what was planned.

It’s also strange how the most meticulous planning and foresight can fail to predict outcomes at variance with what the planners had hoped to achieve.

Strange, too, is the fact that the more motivated and inspired the planner the more likely is the plan to go awry and the less likely the planner is to admit that the plan is not working.

The more ideologically pure is the plan then the more likely it is to come off the rails. The world is noted for its penchant to inject varying degrees of reality into the best thought-out and executed of Man’s schemes, dousing dreams with hefty sluices of ice-cold sanity. There are always those, however, who – regardless of the teeth-chattering shivers and goose bumps of the Arctic chills of real life – will persist in their cherished and cockeyed perceptions of the world as they believe it should be. Like the KFC advert in South Africa, showing two grown men sitting on a park bench in the depths of winter, both consuming some iced KFC confection and progressively shedding items of their warm winter clothes (down to their underwear), each seeking to show the other that he is not cold and is, in fact, quite warm, thank you very much, the ideologues and the proud will go to almost any lengths to deny the existence of the reality of the situation they find themselves in.

Recent South African history has more than its fair share of such idiocy.

The episodes earlier this year of xenophobic violence between different national, cultural, racial and economic groups within the townships and squatter camps of South Africa are but one example.

Having had the images and stories of the brutal black-on-black savagery that was perpetrated in the townships of South Africa flashed around the world – to the astonishment of the global population, given the previous propaganda of the ANC government that all was sweetness and light in the new ‘democratic’ and ‘egalitarian’ South Africa under the benevolence of the ANC – the government of South Africa was, initially, just as surprised as the rest of the world and failed to act in any meaningful way against the hatred and violence for a couple of weeks.

When, eventually, the government began, slowly and inadequately, to address the problem, the official line was merely that the attacks were merely spontaneous and random criminality – ignoring the widespread nature of the onslaught throughout much of the country.

As, finally, the scale of the problem began to be realised the government then turned to one of its old favourite lines of reasoning in times of crisis – viz; the attacks were said to be the result of the work of some unidentified and shadowy ‘third force’ (by implication, disaffected whites and their lackeys lusting after a return to the pre-1994 days of perceived power, privilege and glory) conspiring towards the destabilisation of the country and the overthrow of the ANC government. At which point, notably, the army was called in and troops were put on the streets in support of the police.

(Strikingly similar arguments had very quickly been produced by the ANC government when the country’s only commercial nuclear power station had been crippled by a technical failure, just prior to the realisation that the government and Eskom (the national parastatal solely responsible for the generation and distribution of electricity in South Africa) had blithely led the country into an economically disastrous power crisis. These politically bankrupt, inept and transparent arguments were quietly – and quickly – abandoned in the face of the incontrovertible evidence of the rank incompetence and stupidity of both Eskom and the government.)

Then, as the violence and xenophobia reached its height, the ANC government declared that, once the orgy of hatred had subsided, the victims of the attacks seeking refuge and safety in hastily set up tented camps away from the townships and squatter camps would, as a matter of government policy and ideology, be (forcibly, if need be) re-integrated back into the very same areas and neighbourhoods that had attacked, dispossessed and killed the poor bastards in the first place.

Such is the ideology and illusion of ANC thought and propaganda. The desperate need of the ANC to promote and defend its communist ideas of what, according to their cherished conceptualisations of the world, should be – rather than what actually is – drives them into a denial of reality. The sad part is that they then drag everybody else who is subject to their power into a world that does not exist – much to the discomfort and danger of those who do not share or enjoy the benefits and privileges of the ANC leadership and their ivory tower ideologues.

The concept of different tribes, races and socio-economic groups living peacefully side-by-side in joy and harmony is alluring. It should, perhaps, be an ultimate goal of mankind’s. But in the here and now of human social life on this planet opposites tend to repel and likes attract. It is a simple fact of human behaviour in this day and age, as well as throughout our history.

Elsewhere in Africa where refugees seek shelter from whatever political, military or economic storm they wish to avoid they are usually placed together in camps away from local populations where frictions could ensue. Even without coercive factors such as wars and famines to drive people away from their own homes, those fleeing less life-threatening situations have, historically, tended towards one another; the economic migrations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in America and Australia saw Italians, Jews, Greeks, Poles, Germans, Chinese, Russians, Armenians and Slavs naturally coalescing into their own communities and neighbourhoods because that was what they felt most comfortable with and where they felt safest until, after a number of generations, they were able to assimilate enough of the predominant local culture to be able to venture out into that culture without undue threat.

So, the ANC and its government is intent upon farting against the thunder of human nature. Already many of those displaced during the xenophobic attacks have been returned to their previous abodes. (Others, seeing the writing on the wall, chose to return to their home countries, preferring the known evils and hazards of life in Zimbabwe, DRC, Mozambique, Somalia and Sudan to the uncertain hospitalities of South Africans.)

Already the rumblings in the townships and the squalid squatter camps have begun. Already the voices of dissent and despair over the re-integration have begun as mumbles of the ordinary people. Already have begun the not-so-quiet and subtle statements of local councilors that the ‘nkerekwere’ are not welcome – especially, for example, those Somali shopkeepers in the Western Cape townships who are seen to be too hard working and undercutting the prices of the local spaza store owners. It will only be a matter of time.

Criminality aside, it is only the ANC and its dogmatic and slavish adherence to its unrealistic and disgraced theories of a Marxist Utopia that is to blame for the initial outburst of xenophobic and genocide-intended violence and dispossession. It was the ANC and its inept and corrupt government that admitted millions of illegal migrants into the country and it was the same crowd that failed then to put in place the necessary social structures to police and care for those immigrants. And it is the ANC that, as with the Zimbabwean situation, continues to steadfastly maintain that no problem exists – as if ignoring or wishing away anything that is inconvenient to one’s perception of the world is really going to achieve something.

Nor is it any good to say that the USSR and the old Soviet bloc managed to keep racial and social peace in a wide-flung empire. That was only achieved at the point of a gun and under the constant threat – and utilisation – of ruthless repression from state organs such as the KGB and the Red Army. Despite recent talk from the ANC of instituting so-called ‘street committees’ as a means of doing what the South African Police Service clearly are unable to achieve – controlling and reducing crime – the ANC has neither the skills nor the stomach for such direct social repression, to say nothing of its lack of desire to admit to the world that only force could integrate a tribally diverse society and that its theories are valueless.

But such are the consequences of any system of political, social and economic control that is applied, willy-nilly, as a complete solution to the theoretical ills of mankind rather than as a set of aspirations and objectives which need to be realised within the context of the real world and the differing sets of circumstances in which different people find themselves from time to time. Such systems, applied without care and consideration, de-humanise and alienate those they are intended and theorised to more fully humanise and empower. Human beings are, first and foremost, individual beings within a social environment – not the other way around. And therein lies the danger of systems of thought in which people are primarily catagorised as, variously, (and by way of example) ‘the masses’, ‘serfs’, ‘consumers’, ‘the proletariat’, ‘peasants’, ‘communists’, ‘Democrats’, ‘Republicans’, ‘Tories’, and so on.

De-humanise humans for long enough and, eventually, they will behave as animals.

Spearpoint.

9^th September 2008

Xenophobia in Africa

 

 

 

Today the media are full of the barbaric xenophobic attacks that have been taking place in and around Johannesburg over the past week or so.

 

Quite right, too.

 

It’s interesting, however, that the xenophobic murders of hundreds of Somali refugees in the Cape Town area some months ago never prompted the same aghast response of shock and horror from the media.

 

What a shame that the xenophobia which is so characteristic of Africa in general and South Africa in particular is being portrayed as a recent phenomenon. Very little recognition has been given to the fact that xenophobia has always been an intrinsic part of African life throughout the continent and I doubt that much will change in that regard.

 

The Xhosa hate the Zulu. The Hutu hate the Tutsi. The Shona sneer at the Matebele. The Bushman and San are reviled by everyone. The list is as long as the number of tribes on the continent. And it is not new; many of the efforts of the past colonial powers went towards quelling and controlling the culturally traditional internecine strife between the peoples under their yoke and trying to instill a wider sense of purpose – to no avail, it would appear.

 

Whatever the reasons for intra-African xenophobia, it is a fact that it exists and is so deep-seated as to be all but ineradicable in the foreseeable future – notwithstanding the best efforts of sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists and panels of so-called experts called upon to explain and remedy the periodic flare-ups that occur in a general climate of simmering distrust and demonising mythologisation.

 

Under such circumstances it doesn’t take much to throw the spark leading to conflagration.

 

South Africa is a good case in point.

 

• The thrusting together of large numbers of people from diverse and historically antagonistic groups in the overcrowded ghetto-like environments of townships and squatter camps.
• Large-scale and uncontrolled illegal immigration from poorer neighbouring countries.
• Insufficient, inefficient and corrupt delivery of the most basic of human needs to those who have been deprived for so long.
• Poor education facilities and expertise from kindergarten on upwards.
• Insufficient work leading to an excess of available time to drink and seethe on the perceived causes of various misfortunes.
• Failure by government and its organs to devise and enforce policies and practices to, firstly, control and then eradicate crime and its consequences.
• Failure by community, municipal, provincial and national leaders to elevate themselves as role models away from the basest elements of human behaviour.
• Failure by the above leaders to acknowledge and actively address numerous problems, ranging from crime, policing, corruption, HIV/AIDS, service delivery and so on through to public office probity.

 

These are just some of the factors which make it too easy to find scapegoats when life gets a bit tougher than usual. And the scapegoats are, all too often, those who, for some reason or another, don’t fit into the usual patterns of local life; those from outside the country, outside the district, outside the neighbourhood – the most vulnerable because they are isolated and, therefore, easy targets. The savagery of the attacks is peculiarly African – witness the days of the Congolese uprisings, the ‘necklacings’ of South Africa and the genocide of Rwanda and Burundi.

 

Such targeting, of course, is the course of the ignorant and the cowardly – those too lazy to make the effort to properly evaluate the causes of their present predicament and too craven to challenge those events or people truly responsible for their plight (including, I might add, themselves).

 

The response of our government has been to convene a panel to investigate the causes and results of the violence in the townships.

 

Whoops! Wrong thing to do – at least, in the short-term. Fine for the longer view and for the formulation of later policy.

 

Short-term – get the situation immediately under control. If the police can’t handle it (and they seem, as ever, to be struggling) then get troops in. Separate the rival groups. Patrol the streets. Shoot dead (remember the words of the Deputy Minister of Safety and Security?) the attackers and opportunistic looters.

 

This is a time for resolute and firm action to quell the trouble before it becomes even more widespread and indiscriminate. This is not the time for anguished hand-wringing or high-minded political and social theorising. Fix the problem now and worry about fixing the blame later, when time permits.

 

Already I can hear the gasps of disbelief from the rest of the world – and the increasingly overt sniggers over our inability to face up to the daily realities of running a Third World country.

 

Worse still, I can hear the cries of despair from our own people as they witness yet another step into chaos and depravity.

 

Spearpoint.

19^th May 2008

 

 

 

 

 

Would the last democrat leaving South Africa please turn out the lights…

 

 

So here we have it, at last. It has been a while coming, but come it has.

 

Not that it has been unexpected. It was bound to happen eventually, in one way or another.

 

Many very astute and able writers have been trying – for some considerable time – to show how South Africa has been slowly descending into the abyss. More recently Spearpoint has (with far less ability and effectiveness) added his own voice to the warnings that have been increasingly thronging the various media available to us in this country.

 

I fear that it will all be to no avail.

 

The pessimism, even despair, which has silently pervaded South African society over the last decade or so, is now gaining increasing momentum even amongst those who celebrated the most after the release of Nelson Mandela.

 

Now we begin to see the true colours of our Rainbow Nation; colours that were once purposefully and skillfully hidden behind shimmering nebulae of rhetoric and political razzle-dazzle are now being glimpsed more often as the perceived need for global political respectability is, more and more, discarded as the ANC and its puppet masters gain in confidence and arrogance.

 

Today, the legislation to disband the elite crime-fighting unit known as the Scorpions has been tabled in Parliament.

 

Modeled broadly on the FBI, the Scorpions have proven to be a formidable and largely untouchable crime-fighting force that has shown little or no favour and has appeared to be indefatigable in the pursuit of those who would place themselves above the law. They have been a very necessary foil to the poorly performing South African Police Service.

 

Why the ANC has bothered to involve Parliament escapes me. South Africa is a dictatorship of the elected majority party (the ANC), with absolutely no prospect of any realistic challenge to the current status quo being mounted through the ballot box anytime in the next couple of generations.

 

The ANC might as well come clean and rule by decree. It would save them and the rest of the world time, effort and embarrassment over the increasingly amateurish attempts to legitimise their fumbling realisations of their ambitions.

 

The signs have around for a long time.

 

• The selection of a party leader – soon to be the country’s President – who is awaiting trial on corruption and related charges investigated and brought by the Scorpions.
• The blatant and public protection by the current President of the country – with the tacit approval of the ANC – of the national Police Commissioner who faces serious charges investigated and brought by the Scorpions.
• The blatant and unashamed protection of numerous public officials and office holders who have either admitted or have been convicted of innumerable offences ranging from drunk driving through fraud, embezzlement and worse.
• The blasé and indifferent approach to, and acceptance of, crime levels unparalleled outside of war zones such as Iraq. (An example – it is generally accepted that a rape occurs in South Africa every 23 seconds. Do the math – 1.4 million rapes per annum in a population estimated at around 45-50 million people).
• The awesome drift from reality embodied in the continuing and, until very recently, unquestioning support of rogue and repressive states such as Zimbabwe and Burma – behaviour which has led to the ridicule and scorn of the rest of the world, to say nothing of the loss of life and liberty of those poor unfortunates living in those countries.

 

And these are but a very few of the straws that have been blowing in the wind in recent years.

 

The Scorpions are but a single example of the lengths to which the ANC, COSATU and the South African Communist Party (all members of the tri-partite alliance which rules South Africa but of which only the ANC presents itself for election before the people of the country) are prepared to go in order to exclude themselves from scrutiny by both the courts and the electorate.

 

When will the people of South Africa – as well as the rest of the world – awaken to the fact of the immense confidence trick being played upon them at their expense?

 

Do we have to wait for the raids on the newspapers and televisions stations to become more frequent? (It has already happened). Will we only realise our plight when the Internet and blogs are monitored, controlled and restricted? Will we have to wait for the situation in Zimbabwe to become a reality for South Africa (and so memorably and eloquently expressed by the unknown Zimbabwean who voiced it by saying “We have freedom of expression; we just don’t have freedom after expression”)? Will we wait until the cadres of the ANC and SACP are joined on their nightly dissent-suppression street patrols by armed MK war veterans? Will we wait for the type of bloodbath that surely lurks, Kenya-like, in Zimbabwe’s near future?

 

The writing is on the wall. We ignore it at our peril. We run the risk of a bovine-like acceptance of the denial and corruption of the hopes and aspirations of an entire country already brutalised in the not-too-distant past. Or, simultaneously, we run the risk of opening the door to hotheads and armed reactionaries eager to turn back the clock.

 

And as much as Spearpoint harbours hopes for this country and its people, it is very much my profound fear that already it is too late and that the time is nigh for the call to go out, “Would the last democrat leaving South Africa please turn out the lights”.

 

 

Spearpoint

13^th May 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t Kill the Criminals – Save the Criminals!

 

 

I thought so…

 

Reactions to the “Kill the criminals” news story:

 

- Indignation. Shock. Horror.

 

- Everyone jumping on the bleeding-heart political bandwagon.

 

- How could the Deputy Minister of Safety and Security be so callous and uncaring about our poor, defenseless, misunderstood criminals when they are so clearly virtuous and upright members of our society?

 

- How dare she advocate that the police kill them? After all, they are some of the most productive members of our economy – crime is about the only area of growth in South Africa.

 

…………………….

 

Spearpoint tries, in general, to be reasonably polite in his commentaries. But I’m not too sure I can continue that policy this time.

 

To the critics of the Deputy Minister’s remarks I say this to you.

 

What a crowd of ignorant, stupid, self-serving, self-publicists you are.

 

Clearly, you are not educated or intelligent enough to be able to perform the simple act of reading what the lady said. The words she uttered were clear and simple enough that even my five-year old granddaughter could easily understand what was said.

All your degrees, learning and experience in policing, politics and polemics have so obviously failed to qualify any of you to comment sensibly on the fight against crime – nor have they done anything to merit any involvement whatsoever in partaking of the leadership of this country.

The Deputy Minister’s words were “Kill the bastards if…” (did you get that?) If. IF. IF.) “…IF they threaten you or the community.”

 

Her words could not have been clearer.

 

Her words were entirely within existing laws.

 

In no way, under South African law as it stands today, can her words be interpreted or construed as being an incitement for the police to run wild on our streets. The lady did not issue to the police – or anyone else – a blanket licence to kill nor did she advocate abandonment of due process.

 

The politicians who criticized the Deputy Minister’s remarks have plainly demonstrated themselves to be as unsuited to running our country as the ANC has shown itself to be.

 

The Independent Democrats (ID) and the Democratic Alliance (DA), amongst others, have sought only to score cheap political points off the ANC government – who, as it happens, do deserve to be sniped at with unremitting ferocity – instead of listening to what was actually said and commending the courage and clear thinking of the speaker – ANC or not. For the sake of a headline or two and a sound-byte on TV, you have made utter fools of yourselves and, I strongly suspect, alienated much of the crime-ravaged electorate to which you think you will ingratiate yourselves through your unconsidered and downright stupid responses.

 

You all deserve contempt and ridicule for your self-serving prostitution of what you supposedly stand for in your vainglorious and desperate search for political power at any price.

 

The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) should be even more ashamed of its unthinking negative reaction. Your biases, hidden agendas and overall inability to deal with reality have blinkered you to the fact that, as a supposedly independent and respected body seeking to improve the access to and delivery of human rights to all and sundry, you have chosen to dismiss and denigrate the human rights of the entire population to peace, safety and prosperity. Instead, you choose to defend and shield from the rule of law those who revile and pervert the rule of law when you are chartered to reinforce and spread the rule of law for everyone. You continue to do nothing for the human rights of the majority of the populace and, in your folly, you undermine and pervert our Constitution together with the hopes and aspirations of every single person (black, white, Asian, Coloured) in our country.

 

Our Constitution and such human rights as we all –allegedly- enjoy are a joke. Even as a banana republic we seem unable to produce banana sundaes – only banana skins.

 

 

 

Spearpoint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shooting to Kill the Criminals

 

Maybe it’s a bit premature, but I feel like cheering.

 

At long last someone in the South African government appears to have made a break from the usual line of bull dust regarding the fight against crime.

 

The Deputy Minister of Safety and Security has encouraged the police to be very much tougher on dangerous criminals.

 

During some sort of conference/seminar in which she addressed members of the police force (sorry – ‘service’) (yeah, sure) the Deputy Minister said (referring to the criminals) “Kill the bastards – especially if they are threatening you or the community”. She is reported to have received an enthusiastic response from those police officers present.

 

Spearpoint has had occasion to make comment on the issue of crime in some earlier posts (“Crime and Punishment”; “More About Crime and Rights in South Africa”; “A Little More on Crime in South Africa”).

 

Those of you who have graced my site and read those posts will understand why old Spearpoint is a small step closer to throwing his hat in the air.

 

How refreshing it is that, out of the blue – and in stark contrast to the stance and performance of the Minister of Safety and Security – a senior government minister has had the courage and honesty to break from the usual insipid ANC utterances and actions on how best to combat the criminals in our midst.

 

Good on you, Deputy Minister. Crime is against the law. The law is derived from our much-vaunted Constitution. Crime contravenes the Constitution and our Constitutional and human rights. Contravening the Constitution cancels the Constitutional rights of the contravener. He, therefore, has no constitutional rights and the police then have the duty to terminate, with extreme prejudice, those rights. Survivors will be prosecuted.

 

It is likely, however, that the good lady Deputy Minister will be severely chastised by her ANC brethren for daring to be so politically incorrect.

 

If a reprimand or dismissal follows her comments then you will know, without doubt, that the present government and the ANC has absolutely no interest or intention of further tackling crime and its aftermath beyond what they have already determined to be an “acceptable” level.

 

But coming hot on the heels of Jacob Zuma’s recent outspoken statement about the electoral fiasco in Zimbabwe, I am struck by the thought that, maybe, just maybe, we might be seeing some sort of shuffling of feet away from the more usual ANC policy of doing everything on the quiet – “quiet” diplomacy, “quiet” policing and “quiet” ethics.

 

Of course everything has been “quiet” on the part of the government. When you bury your head under the blankets for fear of seeing the bogeyman you’re so afraid of having to confront and take a stand on, then everything does go quiet. So you do not, then, hear your neighbour abusing his family, you do not hear the burglar coming to help himself to what he hasn’t earned and you do not hear your own family members conniving to rob you of what the burglar leaves behind.

 

Jacob Zuma’s comments on Zimbabwe and on re-opening the debate on the death penalty (see my post “The Death Penalty and Electioneering in South Africa”) are understandable. He is trying hard to establish himself as a credible popular politician suitable for the role of the leader of this country and doing it in a way that will distance and distinguish himself from the “business as usual” style of Thabo Mbeki and his allies.

 

Perhaps the Deputy Minister of Safety and Security is, cynically, also positioning herself for the upcoming change of government leadership in 2009. Perhaps she just wants to ensure that she will still have a nice cushy ministerial job come this time next year.

 

I don’t really care.

 

For the first time the necessary words are being spoken. It remains to be seen whether the necessary actions will follow. I, for one, certainly hope so.

 

I just hope that the police are up to the task…

 

Spearpoint.

 

 

 

South Africa’s Road Carnage

Despite the fact that South Africa has some of the best roads to be found in Africa, the use and abuse of those roads kills and maims many thousands of lives each year.

The amazing thing about all these accidents is that they continue to occur unabated even though everyone from motorists to the government periodically expresses horror and concern over the statistics.

We have the laws. We have the police. We have the responsible government department(s) to manage the roads and their use. We have the funds necessary to build, maintain and police those roads.

However, and as usual in this country, we lack both the competence to do the job properly and we lack the will to do it. The situation is, truly, shameful.

There are several aspects to the overall situation, some relatively minor, others gravely serious.

1. THE ROADS

As mentioned, South Africa does possess some very good roads. The vast bulk of the road network was inherited by the ANC government from the days prior to 1994 when control and management of the country was taken over from the old apartheid government.

Unfortunately, many of those roads, including major arteries, have had little, if any, maintainence performed on them in the intervening years. There are roads which, in the decade or so that I have lived in this country, have never been re-surfaced or had anything done to them other than some minor patching; these are roads that I, personally, have used on a daily or weekly basis for many years.

Perhaps those roads are a testament to the road-building skills of the old days since they are still servicable despite starting to exhibit the inevitable deterioration stemming from continuous use over long periods of time. They are, however, beginning to crack up and when they do start to fail in a big way the costs and disruptions are going to be massive on an unprecedented scale.

Rather like a penny-pinching car owner who fails regularly to service and maintain his vehicle, eventually something big and complicated will let go in an unpleasantly catastrophic way. The expensive sounds emanating from somewhere under the car indicate to the driver that life is about to become, in the manner of the old Chinese curse, interesting – and significantly more costly.

Such has been the apparent approach of the government to our road network. Correct repair and maintenance of our roads has been relagated to the back burner.

The top patching of small potholes, where it is done at all, is all too often just cosmetic with little or no deep seated repairs of the substrate beneath the tar.

Larger potholes tend to be left alone as just another surface obstacle to be avoided – if you’re lucky. When they are repaired they are often patched with the incorrect tar mix; the first few trucks passing over them – particularly in hot weather – tends to establish and then deepen pronounced grooves in the surface which can act much as tram tracks do on the steering of any vehicle encountering them.

Many a driver has had the disconcerting high-speed experience of finding unexpected potholes which can run you off the road, snap a shock absorber or burst a front tyre. The results can be spectacularly fatal.

As well as the road system being, in general, poorly maintained, many roads (including from before 1994) are also badly built and marked. Roads with negative or reverse camber. Roads carrying large volumes of traffic built without proper foundations and footings. Roads carrying the wrong road markings – for example, permitting overtaking on rising left-hand blind bends. Road signage that is either absent, misleading or just plain wrong and dangerous.

THE TRAFFIC

Together with the rest of the world in recent years, South Africa has been enjoying relatively good economic times. Sales of new cars and the ability (until recently) of more and more people to fuel and run those vehicles has resulted in a considerable increase in the size of the national fleet.

The outcome has been a congestion which, even for a Thirld World country, has been impressive in its proportions.

As with most countries the provision of new roads and the upgrading of existing routes has lagged behind the influx of vehicles on to the streets. In South Africa’s case, however, accomodation for the much greater numbers of cars and trucks has been almost non-existent and the consequences in terms of increased travel times and the wastage of fuel by idling or slow-moving vehicles in traffic jams has been awesome.

The road network has not been extended in any meaningful way. Despite the vast and increasing revenues and reserves of the government as SARS has relentlessly expanded the tax base of the country, there is little evidence, in respect of new and better roads, that those revenues have been used in any significant way to enlarge and improve the road infrastructure of South Africa.

The increased traffic volumes will only accelerate the already rapid deteriorating condition of the existing road network. This will exacerbate an already bad congestion problem and will significantly worsen the inevitable delays and congestion that await us if and when the government ever decides to repair and upgrade our roads to the level necessary to maintain and sustain our economy. Even the impetus of the World Cup in 2010 will result in little of significance; the main emphasis will be impressing the visitors to that white elephant event, few of whom will ever venture far off the major routes. Thus some of the main highways will be tarted up but the working roads in the towns and rural areas will be unlikely to see any benefits.

Even high profile projects such as the Gautrain are, much as in the days of the old Soviet bloc, more for national pride and prestige rather than solving practical issues. Aside from the limited service the Gautrain will provide in terms of routing and catchment areas, it’s going to be too damned expensive for ordinary people to utilise on a regular basis – even though the government is currently working to make the road link between Johannesburg and Pretoria, for example, much, much more costly to the average motorist through the imposition of new (and exorbitant) toll fees in an attempt to coerce motorists to abandon their vehicles and use the train instead.

THE VEHICLES

Even though the recent good times in South Africa have seen a considerable increase in new vehicle sales, there remain huge numbers of older vehicles in everyday use. These are mainly owned by those who cannot afford the cost of a new car and are, therefore, less likely to be correctly and safely maintained.

It is not at all uncommon to see significant numbers of dangerous and unroadworthy cars, pick-ups and trucks – their passengers or goods bursting from the frequently overloaded vehicles, smoke billowing from the engines and various bits and pieces of the vehicles fluttering madly in the slipstream of their passage. All proceeding along quite flagrantly on the open public highways, reasonably secure in the knowledge that the chances of being pulled over by traffic authorities are slim enough to warrant the gamble.

Additionally, in the absence of any credible mass transit system (road or rail) in South Africa, some 60+% of the commuting public are forced daily to utilise a fleet of some 130,000 minibus taxis, a great many of which are seriously and dangerously delapidated, driven, apparently, by the largest single group of homicidal maniacs in the country. Accidents involving these minibuses tend to be gory and low on survivability since a number of factors militate against the unfortunate passengers – for example, the high speeds which the drivers favour owing to their pay being based on commission, the poor maintenance of the taxis, the ageing fleet and the incredible reluctance of the passengers themselves being willing to compel the poorly trained drivers (in many cases with either fake licences or no licences at all) to slow down and to drive more carefully and considerately.

The much-vaunted taxi publically funded recapitalisation scheme, supposedly meant to assist taxi owners to remove the older and more dangerous minibuses from the roads, was launched amid great fanfare by the Minister of Transport a couple of years ago. To date, despite the allocation of vast amounts of money, little has been achieved – I understand only some 10% of the taxi fleet has been renewed. There seems to be little urgency about this programme despite the constant complaints from government that the public health system is stretched beyond capacity owing to factors such as, for example, unduly high numbers of road injuries and fatalities.

THE DRIVERS

Whilst not the worst drivers that I have encountered around the world, South Africans are, nonetheless, pretty high on the list.

In general they are unsafe, inconsiderate of other road users, belligerent and very poorly trained. Most tend to have leaden right feet and the drivers of larger cars and trucks all too often subscribe to the “might is right” maxim.

Traffic penalities are, by and large, a joke. Collecting fines and then ignoring them seems to be a national pastime.

South African drivers are never averse to taking risks and shortcuts – and I don’t mean just on the roads themselves. It is so easy to buy a driver’s licence or roadworthy certificate that one marvels that there are any legal drivers at all on our roads. Speed limits are seen as general guidelines at best and minimum speed requirements at worst: Traffic lanes are optional extras and solid white lines are definitely for other people: Alcohol heightens awareness and improves confidence and reaction times.

Far too many South African drivers consider themselves to be invincible and immortal. Accidents happen only to other people. Road rules are for moffies and grannies.

THE POLICE AND OTHER AUTHORITIES

The police in South Africa come in for a great deal of highly justified criticism, even though there are some remarkable individuals who work hard and genuinely give service to their communities. Their’s is not an easy task at the very best of times; it is especially sad that there is so little support for the good cops in the form of decent funding, pay, training and the removal of their incompetent and corrupt colleagues.

The make-up of the police in South Africa is confusing and confused.

Trying to figure out who does what and under what circumstances has certainly left me scratching my head on more than one occasion.

We seem to have a national police force. However, there also appear to be provincial forces, metropolitan forces and traffic police. I am not the brightest spark on the planet, so it’s no great surprise that I am confused in my old age. Plus the fact that I was not raised in South Africa so I have not grown up with the peculiar South African brand of logic that determined the way things have been set up in this country.

Unfortunately, the police often appear to be as confused as I feel and this has a marked impact on the policing of the country’s road and traffic.

It is relatively unusual to see a police vehicle on the roads during the daytime. Most, it would appear, are parked at the various police stations, their occupants firmly ensconced away from the elements, busy losing paperwork, sleeping, extracting confessions from crime suspects and eye-witnesses alike, running their private businesses, goofing off or doing whatever else might otherwise occupy them for the duration of their shifts.

It is almost unheard of to come across a police car on the roads at night. It seems that the approach of sunset sends every police car homeward bound, bearing the officers away from the dangers of nightime South African streets; the police retire to the safety of their police stations or homes and the streets become the domain of the lawless.

South African police do not, as a general rule, patrol. There are no block or neighbourhood patrols as people in the US or Europe experience. Police officers and their vehicles seem to be kept at the police stations awaiting calls to specific incidents to be reported before they venture out on to the roads. Even then, it can take many hours – in some disgraceful instances, days – before police officers will attend the scene of an alleged crime or incident.

Thus, the police are reactive rather than proactive and preventative in their actions.

There is confusion between the roles of the “ordinary” police and the traffic police.

The ordinaries, in their blue uniforms, seem never to act upon traffic-related incidents and offences. This despite assertions from the police that an ordinary officer is fully authorised in law to pull over traffic offenders, to issue tickets or fines and to commence the prosecution processes. Commit a traffic violation in front of an ordinary police officer and it will be ignored.

Even the traffic police do not seem to patrol, on the lookout for moving violations of the traffic laws. Much of their time on the roads appears to be spent either operating road blocks or, more usually, lying in wait on major routes, hidden behind bushes or walls, to snare speeding motorists.

This, of course, generates much revenue (when the fines are ever paid) and is clearly used by police and metropolitan managers primarily to supplement general state and municipal revenues.

Further confusion manifests itself when it is realised that licencing authorities are fragmented into municipal and provincial offices. This generates competition and competing goals between the different authorities and trying to get any harmonised, concerted action on improving the safety of South African roads and vehicles is well nigh impossible.

No national standard of policing and law enforcement policy appears to exist; if it does then differences in the standards of performance of each authority’s personnel negate whatever unity of purpose that may be intended or legislated.

The application of the information supposedly held on various national databases, such as, for example, e-NATIS, is disjointed and uncoordinated, resulting in gross inefficiencies and delays.

It is sad to say that the police – in the form of senior officers and their political masters – are long on rhetoric, promises and self-serving public relations stunts but short on action and results. Publicity campaigns – costing many millions of Rands – are launched without support or serious action beyond a few televised pictures of scores of police officers manning a single road block during a holiday weekend. There is little or no presence on the less-travelled secondary and back roads. The concentration of so many police officers in a handful of highly publicised road blocks reduces their effectiveness on the back roads and elsewhere, thereby contributing to the avoidable deaths and injuries that are ignored at other times of the year.

CONCLUSIONS

Through a combination of political ineptitude, financial irregularities and professional incompetence South African roads are amongst the most lethal in the world.

The lack of political will deprives road construction and maintenance of impetus, enforced standards and skills. It also denies the various enforcement authorities the discipline and pride required to tackle and master the massive problems of improving the skills and attitudes of the driving public to those levels consistent with the stated aspirations of the politicians.

Political promises made in the song and dance routines during election times must be honoured or the relevant politicians must be held personally responsible and relieved of their duties and positions.

Roads must be built, extended, widened, maintained and policed. It does not take rocket science to understand and address the problem.

Policing, in particular, must be improved.

Institute and maintain police vehicle patrols on all roads. Where appropriate, start foot or bicycle patrols and begin winning the hearts and minds of the ordinary citizen. One way or another, put the police out on the streets, visibly policing and interacting with the communities of this country. Take the police out of their station houses; employ civilians for the clerical and administrative functions.

Ensure that the police out on the streets explain and enforce the laws of this country. Make the police active rather than passive law enforcers; moving violations are the cause of accidents and these should be the focus of traffic law enforcement. A cop sitting behind a radar gun cannot see the idiot overtaking on a solid white line on the approach to a blind bend with oncoming traffic. Nor will he be aware of the overloaded truck or minibus, the tailgating of the impatient executive in his shiny new BMW, the erratic driving of a drunken or unlicenced driver, the shifting load of the semi-trailer or the smoking rust bucket that may or may not be able to stop when the car in front has to brake to avoid the bottle that has just been tossed out of the car in front of him.

Swallow the illusions prompted by imagined national pride and take a look at how other countries have addressed and solved their traffic problems.

Back in the 1970’s (I don’t know if it has continued since then) Australia had an excellent scheme whereby new drivers (including those returning to the roads after the loss of their licences) were required to display on their vehicles a “P” plate – the “P” indicating to all other road users that the driver was on a “provisional” licence for a period of one year. Certain restrictions applied to the learning driver during this probationary year – one being, if I recall correctly, that, regardless of the posted speed limit on any particular road, the driver was not permitted to exceed 80 km/hour under any circumstances. Everybody hated the “P” plate; it told everyone that you were a novice and it was, frankly, embarrassing. But it warned all and sundry that, although you had passed your driving test, you were still in the learning stages of your driving career and should be treated with a degree of caution.

Other countries had introduced the points sytem for drivers’ licences whereby points are deducted from a fixed limit for infractions of the highway code. Once all the points were lost the licence was then suspended and you were not permitted to operate a vehicle until such time as you demonstrated renewed competence behind the wheel by passing a fresh driving test.

Another idea – this from the UK – is that every vehicle older than about 3 years old on the road must pass a roadworthiness test every year. Again not exactly a popular measure but it gives some degree of surety that the clapped-out jalopy sitting behind you at the traffic lights has a fair chance of staying in an assembled condition as it accompanies you on the highways.

Finally, and this is a recurring theme with old Spearpoint, make each government, provincial, municipal and police officer personally responsible for their actions and omissions in applying and enforcing the road laws of this country.

If anyone, high or low, doesn’t do their job properly, sack them. If they have been negligent or corrupt lock them up, throw the book at them and lose the key for a while. A public trust rests in these individuals which must be roundly punished if it is broken or betrayed.

Above all, and until those who have undertaken to make our roads workable and safe for all users actually achieve that objective, drive carefully. Drive on the permanent assumption that the turkey barrelling down the freeway alongside you will demonstrate at some moment – beyond everyone’s normal powers of prediction – that he is quite capable of some kind of dumbass stunt that will endanger not only your life but could also have a seriously negative effect upon the re-sale value of your car.

Spearpoint.