south african shooting

[westcorklad]

OK...without me getting slaughtered as a racists, does anyone know what the crime and murder rate was like under Apartheid?

This the most recent article I could find on the net re.your query.Sorry about the length but if you have some spare time it might be worth a read.

http://www.academicjournals.org/AJPS...iaku%20pdf.pdf

[Martin Ward]

This the most recent article I could find on the net re.your query.Sorry about the length but if you have some spare time it might be worth a read.

http://www.academicjournals.org/AJPS...iaku%20pdf.pdf

Will have a look when I get home! Cheers for that mate

[Stephanie]

Oh yes, Apartheid was terrible and a stain on the nation, plus anyone who accepted it happening to enhance trade links.

I would just love to know the contributing factors in this apparent jump in crime

I'm just guessing -- old tribal animosities, poverty accompanied by hopelessness, ease of acquiring weapons.. ?


'Us and Them' mentality >> when crippling poverty is married to an absolute lack of opportunity to get out,

it is each for its own. Only the fittest survive. Such poverty breeds meanness. Lack of empathy.

Not knowing what tomorrow brings, not knowing if they'll have enough (or anything !) to eat, they live only in the now.

Like children -- not thinking about, not contemplating repercussions of their actions. It is beyond my comprehension.

I see it in the village : there's no qualms about stealing, robbing; elsewhere : killing for a pittance.



Just last year there was a case when three youths (roma) ambushed and attacked an old man in his home,

needlessly tortured and in the end they murdered him in the most heineous way.

Their loot ? Three frozen chickens.

The youngest perpetrator was a thirteen year old girl. And it is oh-so-common, it's shocking.

[Martin Ward]

I'm just guessing -- old tribal animosities, poverty accompanied by hopelessness, ease of acquiring weapons.. ?


'Us and Them' mentality >> when crippling poverty is married to an absolute lack of opportunity to get out,

it is each for its own. Only the fittest survive. Such poverty breeds meanness. Lack of empathy.

Not knowing what tomorrow brings, not knowing if they'll have enough (or anything !) to eat, they live only in the now.

Like children -- not thinking about, not contemplating repercussions of their actions. It is beyond my comprehension.

I see it in the village : there's no qualms about stealing, robbing; elsewhere : killing for a pittance.



Just last year there was a case when three youths (roma) ambushed and attacked an old man in his home,

needlessly tortured and in the end they murdered him in the most heineous way.

Their loot ? Three frozen chickens.

The youngest perpetrator was a thirteen year old girl. And it is oh-so-common, it's shocking.

I am sure this wasn't the country that the ANC killed people for (dons crash helmet)

[Stephanie]

That is the mad thing. In certain countries, if you have a 'big dog' who says he is the only one to kill people, it actually keeps the country more stable.

Oh and don't even get me started on So Africa !

Where child rape is a national epidemic, where babies as young as few months old are abused beyond repair,

by their own male family members .

Where recently a woman left her young babygirl in her own father's (the baby's grandfather) care so no harm would come

to the little one, and the grandfather proceeded to tear her up . Don't wanna get graphic to describe the baby's injuries.

She will never be whole, nor continent.

That is more than poverty. That is the meanness I spoke of above, but taken the Nth degree.

[Stephanie]

I am sure this wasn't the country that the ANC killed people for (dons crash helmet)

Of course not

I am simply trying to get to your question : what would cause such a high crime rate

Drawing parallels in a seemingly futile effort to analyse what the deep seated causes might be for a society to descend

into such mayhem and hapless killings ; where human life seemingly is worthless.

What motivating factors, what causative events might drive people to such brutality ..



What do You think the cause might be for such an increase in crime since Apartheid ??

[Martin Ward]

Of course not

I am simply trying to get to your question : what would cause such a high crime rate

Drawing parallels in a seemingly futile effort to analyse what the deep seated causes might be for a society to descend

into such mayhem and hapless killings ; where human life seemingly is worthless.

What motivating factors, what causative events might drive people to such brutality ..



What do You think the cause might be for such an increase in crime since Apartheid ??

I agree with the factors you mentioned. Was just mocking the 'god like status of Mandela and the black struggle. People see this as some sort of Gandhi like passive resistance. They should read more.

That isn't saying that action didn't need to be taken...the freedom fighter/terrorist argument will rage on when we are dust

[Stephanie]

Oh and don't even get me started on So Africa !

Grr ! Where a perpetrator feels no shame, where grown men will get together and gang rape a 6 month old !

As a matter of course.


Perhaps these things happened under Apartheid too, but the 'civilized world' never heard about it ?

Maybe these things were kept in the villages, and never brought to the law enforcement ?

Maybe the govt knew about it, but it was : 'ah they're just killing eachother. Let them at it'.


I'm pretty sure under Apartheid the poverty ridden population would not have had access to weapons,

so they would not have been able to go on shooting eachother. Now they can. They can vent their existential

frustrations at the handy end of a gun barrel..

With democracy comes a more 'open' society, allowing freedom of movement, freedom of information,

ah, who knows. I am so upset ! It angers me so, to have innocents suffer.

Any loss of life can be tragic, but to cripple children in such way ! I know Im off topic.. I would have a couple of ideas

on sentencing guidelines for such crimes..



**Back on topic : Will Pistorius get off scot free ?

Can there be an objective jury ? A jury of his peers ?? >> white, privileged ??

Will they let him off to try to wipe the stain off ?

Will this be like OJ ? Jury nullification ?

[Martin Ward]

I am going to guess that blacks would not have guns under Apartheid. Mainly due to the fact that they would turn them on the white people.

Maybe having a common enemy kept them together, and once that was gone, they turned on each other.

This is all conjecture on a subject where my knowledge is lacking. I just hope that country pulls itself together

[Cassandra]

south Africa has a high crime rate because post colonial trauma represents itself in different ways.
Racism became an inbuilt part of their society. To the point black south Africans hate all other south Africans.
Also Talk to a white south African sometime. Talk about provoking...

Martin is right.
The colonisation of Africa was not only made possible by advanced technology but also by the fact that one tribe didn't like the next, they'd go over, slaughter a few ,and sell the rest to those nice White people with no knees down the shore.
Europeans came at a time when Africa's empires were decaying/diluted.
That said Europeans were used to what we now call War
African ( I can only speak on Southern African history) War's, well it was like The Germans versus those polish guys on horses.
I often wonder if Shaka hadn't listened to some crazy old fart and not had that conflict with his son what would have happened....
but then again the porteguese were already intermarrying and what not....
Ooh sunshine....