Editorial/Opinion

The More Things Change…

By KASIEKULTURE (Goodenough Mashego)

The big question of the year is, ‘does calling some dodgy fun-loving political deployee a General, Colonel or Lieutenant deter their potential for corruption?’ Well, I’m one of those who choose to differ and swim against the tide. At least POPCRU agrees with me on this one. I believe that even if former Interpol boss Jackie Selebi was called General he would still (according to evidence led in court) have accepted that Italian suit from convicted drug pusher and ‘my friend finish and klaar’ Glen Agliotti. He would still have accepted brown envelopes marked ‘JS’ from a front company operated by Agliotti.

Now what’s this insinuation by the ‘Polokwane Lynch Mob (borrowed from UDM’ Bantu Holomisa)’ that they are reverting back to the old apartheid ranking system of the SAPS that put much emphasis on the militarization of the cops thus unleashing shady grey areas like detention without trial, torture, secret filing arrangements and existence of dodgy units like Special Branch and CCB? Why does Fikile Mbalula and his boss Nathi Mthethwa think that the nation is so stupid that they can’t see what’s going to happen next.

Okay, let me be cynical. We will have more incidences of doors being broken down in the still of the night without proper warrants and suspects being arrested and detained in secret gulags without visitation from lawyers and family. We’ll have more listening devices installed in Catholic confession boxes and more ‘undercover’ cops with forged identity cards claiming to work for Crime Intelligence roaming our crèches.

In short; we are drifting towards a police state. The SAPS, who, if Mthethwa has his way will be called SAP Force will have broader powers that will gradually steal our rights. Maybe I’m paranoid, but I have had a pistol pointed at me, my comrade and my grandmother by a Riot Unit (Internal Stability Division) maverick once and I can vividly remember the cold chill down my spine. It’s not funny even when such a cop lacks legitimacy. But now we have cops with legitimacy; we have a fucking democracy (god-forbid), we have an ignorant public that has forgotten how to light the fuse of a petrol bomb and the youth who were born into freedom they don’t know how it feels like to be denied to be yourself.

And now we are burdened with this new heavy police ranks. Mthethwa and the crowd say it is aimed at instilling discipline. I ask; why did soldiers, who are supposed to be poster-boys for discipline march to the Union Buildings last year? Why aren’t they, who have enjoyed these ranks for ages not disciplined? How does a new arrangement of existing alphabets (bureaucratic Scrabble) scientifically grant one discipline? Simply put, are the two politicians insinuating that Bheki Cele is so undisciplined that he needs to be called a General to act right?


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