Missing a week is like missing a whole season on Netflix and then trying to make sense of all the new characters and plot twists.
But who can make sense of barbarism? We all watched an inferno blaze until it consumed Mthokozisi, a hellfire that was deliberately lit to kill the e-hailing driver. But the fire engulfing that car and that human being was done to make a statement. #TaxiTurfWars. SANTACO says that anyone found to be involved will be suspended. I’m surprised they didn’t say they’d put the perpetrators on “special leave” to show just how much they gave a toss about our fellow countryman.
Trigger warning: This report will not cheer you up, even if you like sport. I’m Tonya Khoury. Let’s scrape our way through these headlines with Acumen Media.
Everywhere I look there is death and destruction. Every line I read is filled with corruption and greed. Every headline I analyse is smothered in the blood of our children. Criminals everywhere.
Take a breath because this is horrific: A four-year-old girl from Eldorado Park was laid to rest in the smallest coffin. She had died after being beaten and raped by her father. The so-called father faces murder, rape, assault and child abuse charges.
Enslaved by crime
And the woman who birthed her? She faces murder and failure to report sexual offences. Both these demons abandoned bail. On social media we heard the screams of a child being abused while the neighbours recorded the terrified girl and thus became complicit.
You can’t exhale yet: fuelling the xenophobic spiral and still on the death of children, Ntombizodwa, mother of murdered six-year-old #AmantleSamane, testified about her trauma and hatred toward foreigners, following her daughter’s rape and murder by Phethe Simiao, who has since pleaded guilty.
There were other children slaughtered by those who are meant to protect them and hold them dear. It’s heartbreaking. We’ve become slaves to crime; we are led by criminals; we are surrounded by criminals, #EnslavedByCrime.
And while we were trying to make sense of these episodes, six men accused of mass murder in Lusikisiki appeared in court; an ANC councillor’s assistant was shot and killed in Gqeberha just before a visit by the Justice Minister; residents in Muizenberg, Cape Town, are on edge after a Saturday night shooting that left three dead and one injured; Cape Town police responded to a violent weekend where 10 bodies were discovered across the city; 15 gunmen robbed a cash-in-transit van in Cottonlands; 26 people were killed in the Western Cape, leading to demands from residents and activists for Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Thembisile Patekile to resign. Take a moment to breathe.
Principal stabbed
A principal of Hoërskool Roodepoort was stabbed in the hand while intervening in an attack by pupils from West Ridge High School; a student from Durban University of Technology was killed on the Steve Biko Campus; a 51-year-old principal was arrested for sexually assaulting a 17-year-old learner; another teacher was denied bail for raping a 13-year-old school child.
And to date, this year, SAPS reports that51 000 gang members have been arrested in the Western Cape: 50 000 people can fill a football stadium; you might as well put gates and razor wire across that stadium and seal it off.
And then this … Parliament’s police portfolio committee chairperson Ian Cameron and his team escaped an attempted hijacking in Cape Town. The three DA members in the car (Ian Cameron, Lisa Shickerling and Nicholas Gotsell) were warned moments before attackers ambushed their vehicle. They broke the windows with bricks, injuring Gotsell seriously and Cameron mildly.
One of the suspects, who was shot during the incident, was arrested at a medical facility and remains under police guard. Parliament condemned the attack. Police arrested a second suspect, a 16-year-old boy, in Browns Farm. A third is on the run. A 16-year-old and an 18-year-old trying to kill our politicians? Today teens are being led by criminals; we are surrounded by criminals. We’ve becomes slaves to crime.
Surrounded by criminals
Last time we met, we spoke about the brazen bribery caught on tape. Scroll forward and this week the briber is crying foul. Legalities and technicalities make crime fighting a terrible chore. Suspended CEO Tebogo Malaka, who brazenly and blatantly bribed a journo, now denies any involvement, claiming she was set up.
On a similar note, a #News24 exposé revealed another dodgy appointment to a SETA by the new Higher Education Minister, Buti Manamela, and they named Zungu SA’s dirtiest politician: a label I’m sure he wears with pride.
And then to protect her chom, Nobulelo Guliwe, Patricia De Lille (if you can bear to call her #AuntyPat) walked into the office and dissolved the entire South African Tourism board with immediate effect for unlawfully convening a meeting where they suspended Guliwe.
Crazy stuff, we had a Tourism department and she just magicked it away. If you think that’s bizarre try this: former police official Shadrack Sibiya (you remember him) was suspended/special-leaved after Mkhwanazi came out in camo. He’s now saying he is a scapegoat. Well, why not? We are led by criminals, we are surrounded by criminals, #EnslavedByCrime. Use any ticket to ride.
Sticking to the #Mkhwanazi story, KT #CatMolefe was denied bail in the #DJSumbody murder case. And the High Court ruled that social commentator Anele Mda’s tweets accusing Razmataz Fikile Mbalula of murder were “defamatory and false”. They ordered her to remove them and apologise. Well, obviously!
And then Gayton #EyeRoll Mckenzie was fingered out by the SAHRC for being a racist: yip, he used the K word a few years ago. When he was questioned he said he would step down as he has been given so many other job offers, but he’s here at the President’s pleasure. His son also bought SuperSport United (apparently Gayton has nothing to do with that). Gayton also appointed Trevor Manual as the head of cricket or something. Led by criminals, surrounded by criminals, slaves to crime.
ANC lost its way
And then apparently, ANC comrades might face US sanctions linked to the findings of the Zondo Commission: they’re not ANC comrades anymore guys, they’re all in camo remember, did you miss the “step-aside” memo. Unbelievably, the Chief of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), General Rudzani Maphwanya, is reported to have pledged South Africa’s allegiance to Iran, a move described as being “ill-advised” by president cupcake.
The ministers of international relations and defence are now set to appear before a joint meeting of the two committees to explain their responses to the remarks made by the chop. And guess who’s in charge of that? Supra Muhamapelo, the man who single handedly destroyed the North West and who’s ass was saved by ACEbestos. Led, surrounded, enslaved.
And where was the absent president that is supposedly in charge of all this mess? He’s in Japan and being briefed by Putin; he has bigger fish to fry. He’s not interested in #OperationDudula becoming a set of kangaroo courts, denying medication to the sick. #EnslavedByCrime.
Oh! There was other news. Gigaba told us that the ANC “lost its way” and he’s been disciplined accordingly. When Gigabyte says it’s too much then it really is too much. #RiseMzansi told us that the ANC and the DA were the devils, no prizes there. Action SA joined an EFF-led march against the Polokwane mayor: they cited erratic billing, poor service delivery and favouritism toward foreign nationals. They demanded the mayor’s resignation. I guess they’d like their own con in that position. Criminals everywhere.
And then there was sport
And then there was sport, oh dear. The Springboks and Dricus lost; hulle weet nie wat ons weet nie, ne? Nje!
International media is too full for me to dissect. I’ve just got home, and I can barely make out what’s going on in my own house let alone why the M23 Rebels abandoned ceasefire talks or what it means that the army chief in Israel announced plans to advance the Gaza offensive, with a new focus on Gaza City.
Or that this happened despite Hamas agreeing to a 60-day ceasefire with Israel, involving the release of half the hostages. Trump is still fighting the #EpsteinList and there’s corridor talk that #GhislaineMaxwell is already sipping margaritas.
Zelenskyy the Presidenskyy was back at the White House with a suit, but he tried to make it not look like a suit. Of course, I watched #Putin tramping on the red carpet of America with a smirk that makes you shake your head and say we are led by criminals, surrounded by criminals, #EnslavedByCrime.
I need a friendly octopus or a potato bass to cheer me up; fortunately I have a plan. Thank you for scratching the surface with me and Acumen Media. I’m descending into the blue in a beautiful sunny Sodwana.
