In today’s modern world, you need insurance for everything. I pay car insurance to make sure one of Johannesburg’s crazy drivers do not mistake my vehicle for a safety barrier. I pay an accountant to make sure SARS gets its cut. And I generally stay on the right side of the law because the prospect of a South African lockup is so bad that, if I ever get into serious trouble here I’ll smuggle drugs to Thailand and rather chance their prisons.
Sadly that isn’t enough anymore. If it’s not an aggressive metro cop threatening to lock you up for the colour of your car, unless you pay a bribe, you can expect a forensics team to screw up their work and then throw the book at you in court. This is not my opinion on whether Oscar Pistorius is guilty or not. My point is that the police really botched their case, but he needed a good lawyer to poke holes in that. If that was you or me in the dock and we had a legal aid lawyer, we’d be weighing up on which prison gang to join.
This trickles down - recently I had to help out a local broom seller with some cash. Maybe he was just scamming me, but the guy strikes me as an honest type. He claimed that Metro police shook him down, taking his cash and some of his merchandise. It’s a bit sad that I had no trouble believing him. Informal traders been getting the long end of the police nightstick for quite a while. No wonder they refuse to pay tax...
The poorer you are, the more trouble you’ll get from the cops. It’s not a unique situation: ‘@#$% the police’ is practically a hip hop slogan. But MCs never rapped about a guy getting dragged behind a police van. And from what I hear, he was resisting peacefully! What happens when you appear threatening? Oh, wait, we know that too: they shoot you and then plant the weapons. Nobody is safe - not even a massive group of angry, hardened miners...
So what are your options? Oscar Pistorius’ saga taught me that you need good legal protection. Marikana taught me that you should start running before they see you. Areff Haffejee’s accident taught me that you should not own an Audi R8. The Cato Manor hit squad taught me to never move to Durban. And Mido Macia’s fatal interaction with our boys in blue taught me you need to join a biker gang.
I feel safer already...
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