Vigilante Justice

Recently, I’ve been reminded of a movie I watched in the states just before coming here. It is called “Super” and I wasn’t much of a fan. It was really graphic and cynical and just a bit too violent for my taste.  The basic premise is about a guy who decides he wants to become superhero and fight crime. The problem? He’s just a dude in a costume with a skewed view of reality and morality. He does things like beat people up with a pipe wrench because he deems their acts as wrong. The movie is an interesting approach on why classic superhero plots don’t work in real life and how messy this business of “justice” is because it relies upon human interpretation. But let’s take a step back from Hollywood and talk about South Africa.

I talked in my previous post about the incident with the woman that was killed in her home between Itipini and Waterfall. When that happened, people in Waterfall were naturally upset. They tried to get the police involved, but no one in Itipini was talking for fear of retribution. They, after all, have little to no protection in a place like Itipini from thugs like this. Thus, there was an ultimatum issued over the radio and in the newspaper (issued by whom, I’m still not sure) that everyone should clear out of Itipini within 10 days. The proposal was almost laughable. If these people had anywhere else to go, why would they live in a shack on top of a dump? So nothing changed and no one left.

This is the point when some people in Waterfall were not satisfied with the way the justice system was working, I presume. On Tuesday, when they knew the clinic was closed because of "Workers Day," a group of thugs from Waterfall came and burnt down 8 shacks. Two of these shacks were old abandon ones, but several of them housed multiple families. These threatened that they were going to keep coming until all of the shacks were burnt. The police came and got involved and arrested 30 people, but ended up only holding something like 3 for questioning. Will this solve anything? I’d like to say I have faith in the competency of the justice system and the police in Mthatha, but the truth is that their job is very hard because getting information and witnesses is damn near impossible.  In this part of town, people don’t talk to the police because, like was mentioned above, they don’t have any protection from the people they would be informing on. Thus, vigilante justice becomes a dominant theme here. People take matters into their own hands and make their own “justice” when they feel it isn’t being served. But whose shacks did they burn down on Tuesday? Not the shacks of any of the men involved in the murder. No, they burnt down the shacks of families and old men that had nothing to do with it. It seems to me that this entire incident had actually very little to do with avenging this woman’s death, even if that was what sparked the fire. To me, this entire scenario just seems like more mis-aimed aggression and frustration on the part of young men. The Daily Dispatch ran an article this morning about the whole incident, saying that a “township war” was “raging” between the two communities. But I found that rather dramatic and misleading. There’s not a “war” between Itipini and Waterfall. Many of the people who live in Waterfall once lived in Itipini. Lots of people from Waterfall come to the clinic for treatment, send their kids to our preschool, or are given help with school fees (and free tutoring) for their high school students. No, there’s not a “war.” There is a group of thugs here and a group of thugs there that are butting heads and everyone else is getting caught in the cross-fire.

 So people have fled. In Ngangalizwe, about 90 Itipini residents have taken shelter in the Rotary Hall which has been declared a disaster shelter for them for the time being. The municipality disaster unit is taking them one meal a day and we are taking them bread and another meal since there is nowhere to cook. People are sleeping on wooden floors, but at least they have a roof over their heads for now. I guess the real question is how long the municipality is going to let them stay there and if they will come back to Itipini and rebuild or what. I don’t know. I guess the best we can do is keep providing our service and take one day at a time.

Inside the Rotary  Hall where people are staying. 

Thanks for tuning in.

Uxolo,

Karen