If I told you that every two and a half hours someone is killed in an otherwise achingly beautiful country. That in the same country, every 12 minutes someone is damaged for life by stomach churning abuse. What if I told you this country is the same country that has the temerity to call out a genocide but doesn’t look at its own backyard. A country that just ignores its own war? What if I told you all those statistics, those vile statistics, happened to only women and children. Would you still describe it as a war? I don’t know what that is. #PurpleRain
I’m Tonya Khoury and I’ve watched my timelines switch as if Celie and the book #TheColorPurple walked in and threw paint across South Africa. Paint that seeped into our core. Paint that reflects the colour of bruising and beatings. Purple, the colour used to describe heinous abuse. The book, The Color Purple, talks of a young African American woman, who is raped by her father and bears two of his children.
She is then married off to an abusive man and has a struggle-filled existence. This would be a South African story on any day of the week. It is commonplace, not exceptional, it is the norm. What do you call that? It’s not a war because there is not even a small form of retaliation from the opposing side.
Is gender-based violence in South Africa genocide?
Is it a genocide? Does it fit the terms and definitions of the ICJ? Shall someone call Ronald Lamola? Did someone call Trump? Does AfriForum’s Kallie Kriel and Ernst Roets care? They care so much about a murder that happens on farmland but don’t seem to give two hoots about the woman next door regardless of her colour. She could be purple.
#Women4Change have been called an opportunistic movement because this social media protest and imminent shutdown coincide with the #G20Summit. Yes, that’s the word the media used: “opportunistic”.
Let’s unpack that for a minute. We have seen the major clean up of Johannesburg and how #RamaSofa was “shocked” at the state of the city he lives in.
Painting over the cracks
We have seen the millions pour into painting over the cracks of a city burdened by pain and suffering. The financial hub of South Africa is purple with the beating and murdering of our mothers and daughters.
You’ll pour money into making it look good for TrumPET but leave your sister to fend off the assailant in the taxi, the man walking in the street, the husband, the father, the uncle, the boyfriend, the brother. Trump says he’s not coming because “terrible things are happening in South Africa”; he’s so right, but he misread the memo. #PurplePain
Pour the paint into every crevice, let no opening breath until we strangle this horror out of our throats. Scream purple, cry tears that are purple, raise your fist with purple purpose, Wathinta abafazi wathinta imbokodo.
Purple People
You can tell me that the Epstein files were purple, and Trumps name was all over them, you can tell me that Mexico and Argentina pulled out of the G20 because they bow down to the funding of purple money and that they said it was because we tried to a fight a genocide that wasn’t in our backyard.
Tell me that Trump is opportunistic, tell me that Kallie Kriel is opportunistic, tell me that the ICJ court case was opportunistic. And I, in return, will show you #PurpleRain. Finally, government made the effort to arranged a “meeting” with #WomenForChange but only because they spent all that money on some paint and forgot to fill the craters filled with #PurplePeople.
The horror is so painful. This purple wave that I’m watching unfold on my timeline is filled with women I love dearly. Their stories shared with bare vulnerability and gritty tenacity. Stories that will leave purple tears streaming down your cheeks. Is it a South African #MeToo?
Wrap things in a hashtag
Not a chance, China. We don’t wrap things up with a hashtag. This is the stripped and naked truth. Here are no fancy words or celebrity. This is your sister, your neighbour, your daughter, your mother, your best friend. Even “curbing” gender-based violence is beyond our reach. In 2022 I wrote a piece about one of our team and her struggle to survive horrific abuse at the hand of the man that was meant to protect and care for her.
She was pushed from one pillar to another pothole. The policewomen took her to the back room and made her a cup of tea. She asked her if she was sure that she wanted to lay a charge. #AreYouSure? That policewoman is complicit.
We shut this country down for a child we named #CweCwe, we’ll do it again and again, until someone doesn’t just give us a meeting, until justice is served or at the very least is a line item on the agenda. #PurpleReign
Linked and interlaced
It is enormously difficult to pivot from this story to SA’s courts, because it is clear justice is for the few. But here’s my anchor: we have incredible leadership in our country; we have jaw dropping warriors amongst our political peers.
The tragedy is that we can’t get a single party together or one leader. I don’t understand how I can watch #GlynisBreytenbach, #JuliusMalema and #DereleenJames all push the elephant up the stairs, punching up at the beast of corruption and its interlaced links to the underworld.
Inextricably linked and interlaced. Enmeshed to such a degree that if they were separated they would fall apart. I saw how #GlynnyWinnieWooo took #ShamilaBathoi to school and gave her an education by serving her a massive rotten piece of her own corruption pie.
I watched Julius tell parliament how to operate because they can’t get it together, and without his direction it would truly fall apart I watched Dereleen pull out fifty odd documents and wave them at #BageetBathoi telling her how she had received these from her political party. Bathoi “couldn’t remember” it was only after that pile of papers was shoved under her nose that her memory was jogged.
Colour it purple
The National Prosecuting Authority and the Government Investigating Units like the Hawks or the Scorpions have always been gripped by the tyranny of power hungry leaders. Often disbanded or dumbed down, they are a repeated ill of our country. Colour it purple and let the leaders in. Why can’t we have Glynny, Dee and Juju fighting to save our #CweCwe, giving a clear set of instructions on how to deal with this #PurpleTorrentialRain?
There is a great deal of other news. But let me take you into my home life for a moment, my Mom is fighting cancer and has good and bad days. I cry every day as I try to push grief out of the front door. We laugh, we watch bad TV and we eat good Arabic food.
All against the backdrop of a dune protecting a beautiful bay. Paradise and good company. Does life hold anymore? I suppose this is as good as it gets. Not a splash of purple in our home anymore. Not a splatter or a hue of purple to be seen in our little world because we kicked it out and locked the door. We have other battles to rise up against.
But we too will change our pictures to purple, boycott the G20 summit and rage at the news when it means nothing. Because we too are #PurplePeople.
Man vs greed
I could tell you about AKA and Tibz’s alleged hitmen being extradited by eSwatini (Southern Africa’s new unlocked Alcatraz) or I could tell you that gangster and murder charged #CatMatlala is going to testify from prison at the #AdhocCommittee. I could tell you about the lacklustre budget from hateful, purple maker and abuse-accused #Godongwana. I could tell you that #Makate had his settlement from Vodacom but that now BlackRock are claiming 40% of it. Man vs Greed.
No matter how hard you rage against the establishment you’ll never win. I could tell you there was a cabinet reshuffle, but I’m not yet sure why. And I could focus on the 6 000 ‘AmaPanyaza’ Gauteng Crime Prevention Wardens jobs that are at risk as the (non)Public Protector has ruled their establishment was illegal and unconstitutional.
I could also let you know that in order to keep these nepotistic appointments the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC), would have to retrain them as “traffic wardens”. I mean really, so more roadblocks and cans of coke? Well not because get this, the RTMC is bankrupt.
South Africa just can’t walk the talk
I could also tell you about how Mkhwanazi was pushed into the foreground again, this time by Cedric Nkabinde, the chief of staff for suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu. Cedric made wild allegations about his relationship with Mkhwanazi, referring to “boys’ nights that their wives cannot know about.” Wonder if they painted the town purple.
And finally, I could tell you about the 150 Palestinian refugees seeking asylum in South Africa who were stranded on an aircraft at OR Tambo International Airport after being denied entry, creating a humanitarian crisis. [They were allowed released from the plane on Thursday night.]
I could tell you that we will step up to the big courts, use great lawyers, win our case, put out country at international risk for justice and then turn away the very people we are fighting for. Cry the beloved country.
South Africa can never walk the talk. I could tell you all this, and pretend I watched the news so you don’t have to but the truth is I’ve stepped back and seen the machine for what it is. A distraction. We have to choose peace. Every single time. I make my living out of reading headlines and I’m telling you now to look around you, find those you love and hold them tight. Protect them from the #ColorPurple.
I’m Tonya Khoury and thank you for scratching the surface with me and Acumen Media.
