Where crime rules supreme

From Johan Alberts

Sir: Sadly, Rian Malan’s assessment of the South African saga is all too true (‘South Africa’s future will not be civil war but sad decay’, 14 October). Corruption and incompetence are our daily lot but it is crime, particularly crime of a barbaric variety, that we most dread. All but the very poor have been forced into installing elaborate security around their homes to protect, as far as is possible, family and property. If your car breaks down anywhere outside a busy area, you could be in mortal danger. When approaching a red traffic light, the utmost vigilance is called for. Leaving your home for a stroll after nightfall is a distant memory (unless it’s in a shopping mall). Our (reported) murder rate averages 1,500 per month.

No one is safe, except for our black elite. Such is life in the much trumpeted, newly won South African democracy, and until our government decides to take off its kid gloves, if it is able to, we will see no change.

Johan Alberts

Johannesburg, South Africa From Henry Martin

Sir: Rian Malan finds much to worry about in the new South Africa. Here’s an even more ominous sign: that particular edition of The Spectator never arrived at our local bookstore. Could this be a case of bad news being embargoed? It’s becoming ever more obvious that our government hates the spotlight, and hates being held accountable even more.

Henry Martin

Johannesburg, South Africa From Steven Sidley

Sir: With regard to the article by Rian Malan, here is the list of my friends/ colleagues/acquaintances who have been killed, hijacked, robbed, mugged, housebroken or smashed over the head with a gun in the last three months: Ben and family, including 13-year-old son, attacked and robbed at home at 8 a.m., Ben needing 17 stitches from gun-whipping; Duncan and family (with four children under eight), awoken by robbers in the house at 4 a.m., their house ransacked as they barricaded themselves behind locked doors; Janine, molested and robbed in front of children at a kids’ party in a public park; Janine’s mother-in-law, stabbed to death by a house robber; my work colleague Tandi mugged and robbed of jewellery while jogging in Houghton (Mandela’s leafy home suburb); Danny and Jane (my son’s schoolfriend’s parents) accosted by a gang at midday in Houghton while walking back from Killarney (an upmarket shopping mall) and robbed of everything; Paul, robbed of car, phone and wallet while standing outside his newly constructed home in Westcliff at midday; my wife’s editorial assistant’s brother, shot for a pair of shoes; my wife’s art director, her car stolen outside a funeral service; Derek, Jes (school parents) and their kids, followed from the airport by a gang in a car and hijacked at gunpoint in the driveway of their home.

Arrests so far? Zero.

Steven Sidley

Johannesburg, South Africa From Gillian Godsell

Sir: Justice Malala, a leading South African journalist, writes a scathing critique of the President and the government in a widely read Johannesburg newspaper. Nothing happens. Rian Malan chooses to see this as presaging the demise of democracy in South Africa. A less grumpy commentator might interpret it as a sign of flourishing and free political debate. Not the whole of democracy, certainly, but an important component.

I’m sorry the leg fell off Rian’s table in Cape Town. It does not necessarily follow that the wheels have come off the political dispensation in the rest of the country.

We’re on a white-knuckle ride to democracy here in South Africa. To announce that we won’t reach our destination is as premature as to believe that we’re there already.

Gillian Godsell

Johannesburg, South Africa