Her real point is that of our shared “passivity”. Apart from grumbling now and then we are not disposed towards actually addressing the matter in any sensible way. Patricia de Lille, our most ardent and courageous advocate on this score, has actually incurred significant resentment and demonization as a result, with hardly a squeak of protest from the rest of us.
The question is why? Why do we have rampant corruption? And why are we so passive and accommodating about it.?
The answer is – anomie. Anomie is a word popularized by French sociologist Émile Durkheim in his influential book Suicide (1897). In simple terms, anomie is present when there is a breakdown or absence of a common set of social norms and behavioral codes that citizens are sufficiently bound to so as to respect them. The populace interacts in a climate of “social norm confusion”. The debates on the “kill the boer” saga prove this beyond doubt.
An aspect of anomie is that, particularly in revolutionary times, people will a) re-identify their goals and b) re-identify the means of achievement. So typically the unskilled worker who would have previously been prepared to work for 25 years and retire with his gold watch to a modest pension, will now aspire to a driving a BMW, obtained with use of a 9mm parabellum. A central aspect is that deviance and crime becomes rampant. In South Africa deviance and crime are now pandemic.
It is very common to find a constant wail of lament about the crime situation in the country. This emanates from members off the middle to upper socio economic bracket. Complaints about robbery, murder, rape, hijackings … etc … are understandably never ending … as the levels of these crimes are indeed now legendary. This same camp, to which most of us belong, also calls for more effective policing and harsher penalties to deal with the criminals and crime, and we lambast government for not doing enough.
Government itself, in response to this clarion call, has responded by beefing up the police, to the extent of even militarizing the police. So we now have “Generals” and “Colonels” in the police force. These bright sparks even want the law changed so that they “can shoot to kill” the criminals that are besieging society.
With respect, this well meaning response by government, and the calls that triggered it are incredibly naïve. It is naïve because it simply ignores the fundamental driver of crime … which is anomie! In fact the whole situation is somewhat farcical.
In this, with respect, we are all complicit. We are complicit on any number of counts. For present purposes we need only recognize that a) we do not have shared values and behavioral codes; and b) we have done little to achieve reconciliation and racial unity and perhaps most importantly c) we ourselves indulge in deviance at all levels.
Deviance is a national pandemic! Carte Blanche exposes this week in week out. It presents at all levels and across all racial groupings. At the bottom of the spectrum we have postal workers stealing. At the top we have the “elite of the elite” fixing national commodity food prices. In between you have crooked mechanics, dodgy lawyers, scummy estate agents, corrupt police officers … etc. The list is actually quite endless. The deviance encompasses everything from functional deviance (bad /appalling service) to gross criminal conduct. The deviant road use culture that is the driver of our appalling road use record demonstrates all of the above in microcosm.
The point is that this deviance permeates all levels of our society and presents as a pandemic, far bigger in scale than the hijackings, rapes and robberies that we all scream about! We are indeed a thoroughly anomic society … and this is the fundamental driver of the very crime (and business/governmental dysfunction) that we cry so loudly about.
Here is the rub. No social scientist or criminologist will disagree with any of the above. That is how simply true it is.
What is very disturbing is that this is not rocket science. It is certainly not exotic academic mumbo jumbo. All legal experts, worth their salt, will know this and have known it from the time of independence, especially as apartheid undoubtedly predisposed us to the condition. Despite this there has been no evidence that government is aware of this. There has been no indication that it has been so advised. There is a total absence of appropriate strategy(s).
What is the solution?
Like any addiction we must first accept and admit that we are indeed a society that is inflicted with a widespread deviant culture – at all levels … and stop just pointing fingers, polishing our halos and having hissy fits about “others”.
When the connected elite go on a swanee to New York, on pretence that they are attending a Human Rights conference, it is fraud .. on a massive scale. When no sanction is then imposed we are actually admitting to the criminal underworld that we are “cut from the same cloth”. The deviant mindset is once again reinforced. We have a plethora of such “passivity” examples. The systemic hypocrisy by the “advantaged” sector has to stop. For goodness sake, we have a police commissioner sentenced to 15 years. We have had a president who brazenly protected a convicted thief and kept her on as a minister. Why should the “poor” hijackers and robbers feel any incentive to desist? The fish does indeed rot from the head.
Then we need to assemble a cluster of social scientist and criminologists to devise a “national plan” to address the problem. The call by Dr Ramphele for the setting up of an independent anti corruption agency, with teeth, will then present as just one of a raft of measures that we all need to be involved in … in our homes, schools, workplace, boardrooms … etc.
There has to be a national effort, with all citizens taking ownership, encouraged by the fact that we are all saying mea culpa and not just bitching, moaning and pointing fingers. A shared acknowledgement will also be a powerful precipitant to fostering national unity, especially as it will include the admission that the poor suffer the most as a result.
What If we Don’t
If we do not address the issue of anomie, more crime, bad service and carnage on our roads is guaranteed … whatever we and our well meaning “General” Bheki Cele and his squad of official hit men may imagine. As Ramphele and Archbishop Tutu have already said we need to “walk together”. It is as simple as that. Finish and klaar ….
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