News24 | Ahmed Areff | If you’re pissed off about SA, focus your rage here

When you’re tired of being numb to the horrific crime threatening SA, and you finally discover your anger, don’t perpetuate more violence. Take back some of your agency, and harass government until you’re allowed to make a change at the ballot box, writes Ahmed Areff.

Warning: This piece contains details that may upset sensitive readers.

Little seven-year-old Lolitha Kowa was found in Khayelitsha with a screwdriver stuck in her head, a sock in her mouth, and semen on her dead body.

A four-year-old Eldorado Park girl was allegedly drowned, beaten, raped and left brain dead by her father. She died soon after her parents recently appeared in court.

Mthokozisi Mvelase, a 27-year-old e-hailing driver, was shot and burnt to death in his car outside Maponya Mall in Soweto – a victim of taxi violence.

Ten people were murdered across parts of Cape Town over the past weekend. Most of them were gunned down because of gang violence.

This was just within the last couple of days. There are thousands more stories. And there’ll be more tomorrow, and next week, and possibly for the rest of our lives, until we become the next victim. In fact, Parliament’s Police Portfolio Committee chairperson Ian Cameron and his colleagues escaped with injuries when criminals smashed the windows of their vehicle in an attempted hijacking in Cape Town on Tuesday night.

READ | Two Cape Town teens arrested for attempted hijacking of Ian Cameron and his 2 colleagues 

It’s easy to become numb as murdered South Africans become a cold, unsympathetic statistic – a number that fails to adequately tell us who these people are, whether one of the kids had a stuffed animal that gave them comfort in a broken home, or whether a family has lost their sole breadwinner. It’s easy to ignore a number while we are working, shopping, or deciding what to wear in the morning.

My wife, her eyes welling with tears, earlier this week couldn’t shake off the possibility that she was idly cooking food at home at the same time a seven-year-old was being stabbed in the head with a screwdriver elsewhere.

It reminded me of how mortified she was, 14 years ago, when I casually mentioned to her that one of the stories I wrote that day involved a man grabbing an infant off its mother’s back at a taxi rank and killing it by slamming it against a wall.

Get angry

Being numb to extreme levels of violence is a coping mechanism, a frame of mind required for your normal life to continue to function in the face of extreme horror.

We have been relentlessly pummeled with violence and crime. It’s hard to conceptualise that 5 727 people were murdered in SA between January and March this year, or that 10 688 people were raped. To put that into context, more people were raped in the first quarter of this year than the approximate population of the town of Clanwilliam in the Western Cape.

Crime, for South Africans, is an existential catastrophe.

When the numbness wears off, the only logical response to these atrocities is anger. When we do become angry, we often burn buildings or taxis, or target scapegoats that some communities have identified as the cause.

The trick is to get angry, but not have that anger lead to violence, which only reinforces the cycle of mayhem and death.

It may be reductive to point to a handful of issues as the causes of violence and crime, but research from the likes of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation highlights the factors that we already know – social and economic inequality, frustrated masculinity, and a lack of social cohesion.

I would argue that the state of education in South Africa is probably one of the biggest contributing factors. Throw alcohol, drugs and guns into the pot, and you end up with over 60 murders and nearly 120 rapes a day.

Use your voice

Instead of being angry at each other, it’s the government that should get the full force of our rage, especially when its corrupt politicians and corrupt cops are sabotaging our safety.

To that end, use your voice and inundate any and all of the ministries or government bodies, local, provincial and national, on the publicly listed email addresses below. Some are “info” addresses, and some have names – but these are listed on the government’s online contact directory, or on respective public websites.

It doesn’t have to be about crime. It can be about our horrific government schools, it can be about local corruption, it can be about our poor infrastructure, it can be about SA National Defence Force General Rudzani Maphwanya’s “rogue” Iranian visit.

If you don’t hear back, if all you get in response are bland platitudes and excuses, email them again, and then again. Inundate government and make it untenable for them to ignore you. Take back some of your agency, and keep on pushing until you’re allowed to make a change at the ballot box.

So speak:

Legislatures:

Parliament: info@parliament.gov.za

Gauteng legislature: lmwale@gpl.gov.za

Western Cape legislature: radams@wcpp.gov.za 

North West legislature: yolanda@nwpl.org.za

Northern Cape: pmoopelwa@ncpl.gov.za

Mpumalanga: prettyma@mpuleg.gov.za

Limpopo: ramokonyaneb@limpopoleg.gov.za

KwaZulu-Natal: naidoon@kznleg.gov.za

Free State: Josephm@fsl.gov.za

Eastern Cape: nmpumlwana@ecleg.gov.za

Metros:

Johannesburg: executivemayor@joburg.org.za

Cape Town: City.Manager@capetown.gov.za

eThekwini: metroceo@durban.gov.za

Tshwane: customercare@tshwane.gov.za

Buffalo City: yawam@senqu.gov.za

Ekurhuleni: mayor@ekurhuleni.gov.za

Mangaung: sello.more@mangaung.co.za

Nelson Mandela Bay: cm@mandelametro.gov.za

President and Ministers:

The Presidency: president@presidency.gov.za

Agriculture: LandelaMatoti@dalrrd.gov.za

Basic Education: info@dbe.gov.za

Communications and Digital Technologies: MMatiwane@dcdt.gov.za

Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs: info@cogta.gov.za

Correctional Services: eune.oelofsen@dcs.gov.za

Defence and Military Veterans: info@dod.mil.za

Electricity and Energy: Tumi.Mthimunye@dmre.gov.za

Employment and Labour: dol.customercare@labour.gov.za

Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment: SVNkosi@dffe.gov.za

Finance: mary.marumo@treasury.gov.za

Health : minister@health.gov.za

Higher Education: callcentre@dhet.gov.za 

Home Affairs: carli.vanwyk@dha.gov.za

Human Settlements: Thandeka.Tshabalala@dhs.gov.za

International Relations and Cooperation: Marabaa@dirco.gov.za

Justice and Constitutional Development: ntshaba@justice.gov.za

Land Reform and Rural Development: PA.Minister@dalrrd.gov.za

Mineral and Petroleum Resources: Vuyelwa.Siyeka@dmre.gov.za

Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation: Anneke@dpme.gov.za

Police: complaintsnodalpoint@saps.gov.za

Public Service and Administration: Sibongile.hlongwane@dpsa.gov.za

Public Works and Infrastructure: dg.pa@dpw.gov.za

Science, Technology and Innovation: Kukie.Moloi@dst.gov.za

Small Business: pmarutla@dsbd.gov.za

Social Development: info@dsd.gov.za

Sports, Art and Culture: MariliseF@dsac.gov.za

Tourism: MNene@tourism.gov.za

Transport: Sylvesterg@dot.gov.za

Water and Sanitation: SomyoS@dws.gov.za

Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities: ministry@dwypd.gov.za

- Ahmed Areff is News24’s deputy editor and Johannesburg bureau chief.

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