Police brutality has been in the news for the last week or so after a Stellenbosch pub was raided by the South African Police Service (SAPS). Patrons were harassed and in some cases brutalised by those tasked with protecting citizens. Carte Blanche (M-Net) ran this past Sunday night and in true Carte Blanche fashion there may have been an underlying racial tone in the reporting. For those who don’t know Carte Blanche, it is Investigative News Magazine Television Show on M-Net, the largest Pay-TV channel in South Africa. It seems; for me at least, Carte Blanche seems to deal with more upper- Middle Class and White issues. So I’m not surprised that when an issue about the SAPS raiding a predominantly White pub in which they used excessive force, it’s a Carte Blanche headline issue.

This seems to diminish the real issue to me, which is that in the last year 700 people died in Police custody. That is totally unacceptable but this issue is only made public either when the United States of America’s State Department criticises this or when a White pub is involved in a police brutality issue. Once again the race issue comes to the forefront of fundamental issues like safety and security. I just wanted to highlight that Carte Blanche is not helping anyone by always reporting national issues within the veiled confines of race and class. Police brutality unbeknown to many of us is a big issue, so it should be given the necessary objective scrutiny.

The SAPS is under immense pressure trying to deal with what I think is the most important national issue in South Africa, crime. So should it be a problem when the police use excessive force? The criminals are using excessive force when they murder, rape and rob us. So let the police deter them by showing equal amounts of force. However, Apartheid comes to bite us in the backside now. During Apartheid, police used excessive force to oppress those fighting for liberation. So in today’s South Africa, in which a Bill of Rights reigns supreme, excessive use of force is unacceptable. So then what are the police to do? It seems in part they are trying to deal with crime with one hand tied behind their backs.

My argument would stand if the police were actually doing a good job or trying. But they are not. I find it hard to argue for the SAPS as they continue to be riddled with internal issues like corruption. Their current commissioner is suspended and being investigated for having unsavoury relations with organised crime. How can one then trust them, when crime is rooted within the SAPS too? Raiding a White pub in Stellenbosch seems to be a misappropriation of human capital. They could have done the raids in a more orderly fashion.

And this to me brings back the race issue. Most of the SAPS officers are people of colour and this could be construed in some circles as a form of sub-conscious pay back for what happened in Apartheid. Unfortunately, this is the new South Africa; many an issue is divided into Black and White first and then assigned significance. So most of the time White issues seem to be given more media time and Black issues are relegated to views like the Blacks just continue to kill themselves. This should not be the case; crime is a problem for everyone. The media should start reporting crime as a national South African issue and not a Black or White issue. We are all suffering!
By FSW