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We let baby Jordan Leigh down
27/06/2005 10:07 - (SA)
Jordan-Leigh Norton was buried in Rondebosch East, Cape Town, last week.
The little baby, at only six-months-old, was the latest victim of our thoroughly lawless country.
It is in instances such as hers that "innocent victim" make the harshest sense, and I cannot help but to keep having mental images of a tiny white coffin being placed in front of an altar in a
church, and people weeping for a little life that was given no chance at all.
What sort of beast plunges a dagger into the neck of one so tiny, with the express intention of
killing?
Is this the kind of society we have become, that we no longer care about the actions we
take?
My heart goes out to Natasha Norton, the mother of the tiny victim; her child died in the most
grievous circumstances imaginable.
Prime suspect
Okay, so a young woman has already appeared in court to answer a charge of murder by dint of
having allegedly hired four men to kill the baby.
Four intruders apparently stormed little Jordan-Leigh's home, one of the men posed as a
courier-company employee.
The baby was snatched by one of the four men, and her uncle and
caregiver were tied up and bundled into a bathroom.
The robbers stole many items from the house, including the family safe, before they fled.
The bound pair managed to free themselves and found the baby dumped in one of the bedrooms, with a
stab wound to her neck.
The young woman who has appeared in court is the 24-year-old former girlfriend of
Jordan-Leigh's father which, to my mind, makes the crime all that more deplorable.
As we would say in the ghettos, it would appear little Jordan-Leigh "ufel'amanyala".
Nothing can justify the butchering
Whatever statements will be made will never be any excuse or reason to explain the butchery of the baby.
What I find more distressing at the moment is the almost deafening silence across the nation
regarding the baby's murder.
I still remember a few years ago when another six-month-old toddler's head was blown off by
a shotgun bullet fired by a white man in Benoni, and the right royal brouhaha it caused - and very
correctly too, because the little people cannot fight or speak for themselves.
This time, it seems to me that we have all let little Jordan Leigh down with our silence.
Father Hugh Boyle, who baptised the baby only a few months ago before now having to bury her,
said in his homily that what had been done to the child was "wrong and abominable ... She died for the sins of crime, violence and jealousy".
Let us all stand up for our little people.
Let us stop raping them and murdering them because, ultimately, their innocence and
helplessness make them look to us for their protection.
Jordan-Leigh Norton, go well little one, your innocence will forever speak for you. Rest in
peace, tiny angel. Lala ngoxolo (Rest in peace).
Jon Qwelane's column is published each week on News24, courtesy of Jon Qwelane and the editor of Sunday Sun, which originally carried the article.
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