BOERE MAFIA and PAGAD

I have recently had the misfortune of meeting members of, what I assume is, the local BOERE MAFIA and it was a thoroughly unpleasant experience.

At about the same time PAGAD was heard on a local radio newscast appealing for "all people opposed to gangsterism and drugs" to join their organisation.

For the benefit of non-SA surfers, PAGAD stands for :
People Against Gangsterism And Drugs.

The whole world knows what MAFIA means and represents to law-abiding folk, of which I am one. The local version of the evil, which organised crime represents, is no different to or less repulsive than the universal one.

Evil is evil is evil.

I don't see shades of extortion, drug dealing, prostitution, corruption of law enforcement agencies. There is no half-guilty verdict in a court of law, as well there should not be.

Enter PAGAD; an organisation ostensibly founded by members of the public who are (stated to be) opposed to the gangsterism and drugs and violence which is so endemic throughout our embattled land.

Let me state, unequivocally, that I have great sympathy for the frustration of the families involved, at street level, in dealing with the horrors that abound in most of South Africa today.

But I have a definite problem with fighting lawlessness with equal lawlessness, violence with equal violence, death with equal death.

I have great sympathy with and loudly support the aims of the IRA, but I vehemently oppose their modus operandi in attempting to achieve those aims. So it is, with PAGAD.

Public displays of PAGAD's way of doing things are, in my mind, reminiscent of vigilante gangs during the Wild West.

The question is begged : What must the average man in the street do, when things get as desperate as they are in the Rainbow Nation; when the government has so patently lost control of the land to the thugs and criminals?

I don't have glib answers for you. I don't have quick-fix solutions to what ails us. I do believe it is not to be found in revenge and "equal" retribution, in the Old Testament law of an-eye-for-an-eye. That is the law of the jungle.

We are not animals, we are supposed to be civilised human beings.

Yes, we need to oppose evil. But to oppose evil with a different form of evil is to perpetuate the problem, not address it. Evil needs to be met with understanding and forgiveness; it needs to have its behaviour modified, not its life ended.

Reintroduction of capital punishment will be giving in to the criminals. It will allow more of them to justify, in their sick minds, their bad attitude towards moral, normal, society.

Neither does relaxing the gun laws help in any way. That will merely put MORE weapons within the reach of the lawless, because the vast majority of the public do not have the foggiest idea of how to look after or to handle deadly weapons. Enough innocent victims are already dying, accidentally, every day.

Perhaps some of the following suggestions may go some way in bringing relief to our nation :

• Parents taking responsibility for their children's behaviour, instead of trying to shift the responsibility of "protecting" them onto government's shoulders.
   
  
• More of us being prepared to do community service within our local police forces. Let's join the fight, not remain non-paying spectators.
   
  
• You and I becoming aware of our actions and their results. When we are willing to buy something, cheaply, which has "fallen off the back of a truck", we are hiring organised crime to do our stealing for us.
   
  
• Joining forces with the workers, via COSATU, who are being robbed at every turn. In the old South Africa trade unions had to contend with fighting organised business and organised politics. We were promised a new deal. What has happened to those promises? This means that the general public should join COSATU's call for general strikes, instead of attacking them for "harming the economy."
   
  
• Doing something to publicise the plight of our country to the world outside. Let's burst the bubble of bullshit that's being sold to "foreign investors" to entice them to bring in funds, which are them stolen from us by "new" politicians who are no less corrupt than the "old government" used to be.
   
  
• Publicly displaying that we no longer accept that the sad state of affairs is due to "apartheid evils", when it is so obvious that the present bunch in Parliament are not capable of governing us. They have proven that they do not have the interests of the populace at heart, nor do they have the necessary abilities to ensure responsible government. Let us stop making excuses for them by saying "they haven't had enough time."
   
  
• Becoming involved in the community-help projects that are being run by so many religious congregations around the country. Let's do something to help the guy next to us, who is worse off than we are.
   
  
• Supporting any political party which is prepared to fight the next election on a manifesto that is based on its undertaking to amend the Constitution:
   
  
  • To afford society more rights. We seem to have drifted into a laughable situation where the individual has so many rights, that society has none.
     
    
  • To give the maximum powers to local authorities, with less and less power to central government. The electorate allowed itself to be hoodwinked by the ANC; they are playing exactly the same games that the Nats become grandmasters at.
     
    
  • To entrench proportional representation, in place of the Westminster "winner-take-all" system.
     
    
  • To entrench the right of the voters in a constituency to vote, by simple majority, to remove their MP or LPC from office, WITHOUT the need for a by-election, where the politician's non-performance warrants it.
     
    
  • To entrench a phased-in plan to render us a gun-free country.
     
    
  • To make profiteering or belonging to a cartel a criminal offence, punishable by long prison sentences, the confiscation of the assets of the business concerned, and WITHOUT the option of a fine.
     
    
  • To set aside at least one percent of the annual national budget to a fund for the reward of people who are prepared to "blow the whistle" on criminal activity they become aware of.
     
    
  • To set in motion a ten-year plan to shut down the Johannesburg Stock Exchange at the end of ten years, with specific attention given to the return of the capital involved to South African CITIZENS, not companies.
     
    
  • To render any capital profits made by corporate bodies subject to income tax, and specifically that the definition of 'corporate body' should include pension and provident funds, partnerships, closed corporations, etc.
     
    
  • To set in motion a ten-year plan, the aim of which is to increase the rate of company taxation and the rate of V.A.T. and, simultaneously, reduce the rate of personal taxtion, until a point is reached at which the levying of taxation on personal incomes is no longer necessary.
     
    
  • To set in motion a ten-year plan, the aim of which is to shift the cost of the country producing business-oriented university graduates from the back of the taxpaying man in the street, to the profit and loss accounts of the business world (which will make use of the skills acquired via such an education).
     
    
  • As an addition to these ten-year plans, to institute a programme whereby ANY university graduate has to undertake a period of COMPULSORY community service, in order to repay the economy for the privilege afforded the student to acquire an inexpensive education, unless such education has been funded TOTALLY by a prospective employer or the student's own (family) resources, without any contribution from the State coffers.

If we persist, individually, in doing nothing but moan about the situation, we not only add unnecessary negativity to the equation, but we also allow only the voices of the "fundamentalists" and hard-liners to be heard around the globe. This will evetually "force" any government in power to over-react to the situation and meet force with equal force.

The step, from accepting on one's conscience the power to determine whether a particular crime deserves the criminal to forfeit his life, to usurping unto onself the power to burn people in gas ovens because they practice a different belief system, is no giant step for mankind.

It has been made before, and many are still capable, nay, prepared to make it again.

Let us learn quickly how we can best oppose the violence in our beautiful land with a form of passive resistance that suits our particular style best.

But let's do something . . .

Peter Ben-Israel
29 October 1997

Page last updated 14 August 1999
URL : payback.htm