THE encounter was brief, innocuous, if not downright silly. But when she later reflected on it, my wife couldn’t help shivering.
Like most good Capetonians who get shocked when you tell them that they, too, belong to South Africa, this was my wife’s first tentative foray into the city of gold, when she was stopped by the police at a traffic light in Soweto.
They pointed to a seatbelt – which she wasn’t wearing. She apologised and strapped it on immediately.
Just when she thought it was over, they asked for her driver’s licence, which she didn’t have on her. One policeman sighed audibly, and pointed out that they would let her go this time, seeing she was new in town. But she had to give them some “cold drink”, supposedly as a token of appreciation of their generosity of spirit.
She respectfully pointed out that she would have liked to buy it, but she couldn’t see any shop nearby. They exchanged glances. She then produced a R20 note and gave it to one of them and said: “For when you find a shop.”
One of them became aggressive: “What’s this? Do you think we are this cheap? Just go, voetsek, just go.”
That was about 14 years ago, eons before she became intimate with Jozi street argot, where “cold drink” is a euphemism for a bribe.
With her new understanding of what really happened in Soweto that day, she got really scared.
The papers last week went agog about Thandile Babalwa Sunduza, a member of parliament who had an encounter with the boys and girls in blue – an encounter which shows just how our police force has evolved over the past 14 years since my wife had that encounter.
Sunduza was flagged down somewhere in Sandton, northern Joburg. She thought she would stop her car a bit further down, to avoid blocking traffic. Then she heard a “big bang” and realised that a metro police 4x4 had crashed into her car.
About 10 metro police surrounded it. Female members shouted at her, calling her isifebe (whore), and threatened her with violence.
But consider this case: Hlengiwe Mkhize, a KwaZulu-Natal police constable was last week sentenced to 15 years in jail for murder.
What happened?
In previous testimony, the court heard how Mlindeli Ngcobo was with four occupants in a car when he accidentally bumped into Mkhize’s car in July last year on Bulwer Road in Taylor’s Halt.
The two agreed to report the accident to police but Mkhize fired two shots at Ngcobo's car and hit him in the head.
He died later in hospital.
Another case: On February 21, a constable was in court for a rape that took place in Boshoff, in the Free State.
He gave his former girlfriend and other friends a lift from a tavern in a state vehicle. When the two were left alone, he pulled over so that she could urinate.
After a chase, the constable allegedly raped her, assaulted her and threatened to kill her when she refused to get back into the car.
And can we forget the horrific murder of Mido Macia who, last month, was dragged from the back of a police van?
The officers’ initial statement declined to mention that Macia was tied to the police van’s bench and dragged through the street.
Thankfully, footage captured by a passerby showed the nation and, later, the world – how it had gone down.
After Macia’s death, Amnesty International said that the Independent Police Investigative Directorate had received 720 new cases for investigation of suspicious deaths in custody between April 2011 and March last year.
This is not an evocation of a dystopian nightmare. This is the reality we live with.
We have become a police state. Which is ironic if you consider that our democratic system, our constitution in particular, has been hailed internationally – by both lawmakers, envious statesmen and academics – as the most forward-looking in the world.
It was quite understandable why policemen were brutal in apartheid South Africa. They were buttressing an illegitimate, violent system. They were the well- heeled jackboot of oppression.
Now, in a transforming environment, shouldn’t one of our priorities be to ensure that our policemen are the foot soldiers in the battle to make this a law- abiding country?
Make no mistake, we have many good policemen; but their good deeds are unfortunately overshadowed by their vacuous, belligerent colleagues. The president has made stern remarks about police brutality. Those words must now be backed by action.
It starts with small things such as monitoring officers to ensure that they are not going around asking drivers for cold drink. There must be a unit that should police the police, if any stride – no matter how humble and small – is to be made towards ridding the force of bad apples, and instilling discipline to help transform the police, and thus restore the public’s confidence in the security apparatus.
It’s not going to be easy. But it’s the least that should be done – if the system is to be salvaged and put back on a healthy footing. Otherwise, we could have another wave of lawlessness where private citizens will say “enough” and take the law into their hands, against the police, and against each other.
Fred Khumalo is a journalist. This article first appeared in the Sunday World. Follow him on twitter @FredKhumalo
Insight: Chilling police brutality is stealing our freedom
Like most good Capetonians who get shocked when you tell them that they, too, belong to South Africa, this was my wife’s first tentative foray into the city of gold, when she was stopped by the police at a traffic light in Soweto.
They pointed to a seatbelt – which she wasn’t wearing. She apologised and strapped it on immediately.
Just when she thought it was over, they asked for her driver’s licence, which she didn’t have on her. One policeman sighed audibly, and pointed out that they would let her go this time, seeing she was new in town. But she had to give them some “cold drink”, supposedly as a token of appreciation of their generosity of spirit.
She respectfully pointed out that she would have liked to buy it, but she couldn’t see any shop nearby. They exchanged glances. She then produced a R20 note and gave it to one of them and said: “For when you find a shop.”
One of them became aggressive: “What’s this? Do you think we are this cheap? Just go, voetsek, just go.”
That was about 14 years ago, eons before she became intimate with Jozi street argot, where “cold drink” is a euphemism for a bribe.
With her new understanding of what really happened in Soweto that day, she got really scared.
The papers last week went agog about Thandile Babalwa Sunduza, a member of parliament who had an encounter with the boys and girls in blue – an encounter which shows just how our police force has evolved over the past 14 years since my wife had that encounter.
Sunduza was flagged down somewhere in Sandton, northern Joburg. She thought she would stop her car a bit further down, to avoid blocking traffic. Then she heard a “big bang” and realised that a metro police 4x4 had crashed into her car.
About 10 metro police surrounded it. Female members shouted at her, calling her isifebe (whore), and threatened her with violence.
But consider this case: Hlengiwe Mkhize, a KwaZulu-Natal police constable was last week sentenced to 15 years in jail for murder.
What happened?
In previous testimony, the court heard how Mlindeli Ngcobo was with four occupants in a car when he accidentally bumped into Mkhize’s car in July last year on Bulwer Road in Taylor’s Halt.
The two agreed to report the accident to police but Mkhize fired two shots at Ngcobo's car and hit him in the head.
He died later in hospital.
Another case: On February 21, a constable was in court for a rape that took place in Boshoff, in the Free State.
He gave his former girlfriend and other friends a lift from a tavern in a state vehicle. When the two were left alone, he pulled over so that she could urinate.
After a chase, the constable allegedly raped her, assaulted her and threatened to kill her when she refused to get back into the car.
And can we forget the horrific murder of Mido Macia who, last month, was dragged from the back of a police van?
The officers’ initial statement declined to mention that Macia was tied to the police van’s bench and dragged through the street.
Thankfully, footage captured by a passerby showed the nation and, later, the world – how it had gone down.
After Macia’s death, Amnesty International said that the Independent Police Investigative Directorate had received 720 new cases for investigation of suspicious deaths in custody between April 2011 and March last year.
This is not an evocation of a dystopian nightmare. This is the reality we live with.
We have become a police state. Which is ironic if you consider that our democratic system, our constitution in particular, has been hailed internationally – by both lawmakers, envious statesmen and academics – as the most forward-looking in the world.
It was quite understandable why policemen were brutal in apartheid South Africa. They were buttressing an illegitimate, violent system. They were the well- heeled jackboot of oppression.
Now, in a transforming environment, shouldn’t one of our priorities be to ensure that our policemen are the foot soldiers in the battle to make this a law- abiding country?
Make no mistake, we have many good policemen; but their good deeds are unfortunately overshadowed by their vacuous, belligerent colleagues. The president has made stern remarks about police brutality. Those words must now be backed by action.
It starts with small things such as monitoring officers to ensure that they are not going around asking drivers for cold drink. There must be a unit that should police the police, if any stride – no matter how humble and small – is to be made towards ridding the force of bad apples, and instilling discipline to help transform the police, and thus restore the public’s confidence in the security apparatus.
It’s not going to be easy. But it’s the least that should be done – if the system is to be salvaged and put back on a healthy footing. Otherwise, we could have another wave of lawlessness where private citizens will say “enough” and take the law into their hands, against the police, and against each other.
Fred Khumalo is a journalist. This article first appeared in the Sunday World. Follow him on twitter @FredKhumalo
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