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Rachel Smalley: High profile shooting all too familiar for South Africans

Author
Rachel Smalley,
Publish Date
Tue, 28 Oct 2014, 10:20AM
Photo: Stock Xchng
Photo: Stock Xchng

Rachel Smalley: High profile shooting all too familiar for South Africans

Author
Rachel Smalley,
Publish Date
Tue, 28 Oct 2014, 10:20AM

South Africa is reeling yet again this morning after another high profile shooting.

The captain of the South African football team - Senzo Meyiwa - has been shot dead in his girlfriend's home. A botched robbery, apparently.

To South Africans, it will be a familiar story… Two men entered the home, a third remained outside. They demanded mobile phones and valuables and something went wrong so they shot the footballer, and then fled on foot.

Jacob Zuma, the South African president says they will find the killers. Will they?

Well, they'll arrest three men at some stage, but with no DNA database in South Africa and a corrupt police force, it's hard to say whether there will ever be justice.

Life is cheap, so cheap in South Africa.

In the most recent annual statistics - between April last year and March this year - more than 17,000 people were murdered in South Africa. That's an increase of 5 percent. 17,000 people.

My husband is South African so I've spent quite a bit of time there and there really is no country that better illustrates the imbalance between the extremely rich and the extremely poor.

My inlaws live on an estate in Johannesburg and it's just near the huge sprawling black township of Diepsloot - many estates are near the big townships because they provide the labour, the maids, the gardeners, etc, that keep the estates running.

And like most estates in South Africa, my inlaws' estate is surrounded by an 8 foot high concrete block fence with razor wire and cameras across the top and at the gate, there are armed security guards.

Then you drive in, and it's like a suburb of Hollywood…

Manicured lawns, big homes, beautiful pools, a golf course, a restaurant, a pretty river running through it. The disparity between the estate and Diepsloot is remarkable.

Many of my husband's friends have left. Many say they'll never go back. Many have been victims of violent crime. Home invasions, robberies, car-jackings.

And I have landed myself in trouble in South Africa suggesting that while horrific, it is easy to understand why South Africa has such a high crime rate - the gap between the wealthy and the poor is so vast. Crime for many is an easy option because, well, they see it as the only option. 

What's to lose? In the townships, many have no way of bettering their lives because under the apartheid era they were denied an education, and so the vicious, violent circle goes on. And now you have a role model - Senzo Meyiwa - one of the most high profile sports men in South Africa, shot dead in a botched robbery.

Another dreadful crime. Another example of how societies implode when there is a huge imbalance between the very wealthy and the very poor.

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