In The Wretched Of the Earth, Franz Fanon writes that "the native is declared insensible to ethics; he represents not only the absence of values, but also the negation of values. He is, let us dare to admit, the enemy of values, and in this sense he is the absolute evil. He is the corrosive element, destroying all that comes near him; he is the deforming element, disfiguring all that has to do with beauty or morality; he is the depository of maleficent powers, the unconscious and irretrievable instrument of blind forces."
Phumlani Pikoli asks in a video opinion piece at what point he was pushed out of the community for being this "insensible to ethics, value-absent, corrosive element, destroyer of things".
He describes the last time he remembers being part of the neighbourhood he grew up in. On a rainy day in his early high school years, while walking up the hill to visit a neighbour, when a white Afrikaans lady stopped her Land Rover and gave him a lift home. That was the last time he felt part of the neighbourhood.
To effect the sense of safety in communities, there is a need to combine a strengthening of the justice system with better-connected members of communities. In areas in which people do not know each other, they do not notice the things that are out of the ordinary, the tell-tale signs that a crime may be in progress.
Politicians often tell us that crime thrives only in communities where it is tolerated. But it seems to me that crime thrives in societies where some are never allowed in, and when communities cannot be bothered to differentiate between those who are part of the community and are ignored and those who aren’t part of communities. Crime happens because the boundaries of community have become smaller and smaller and are no longer of use to us in improving the quality of our lives. Crime happens because when we protect ourselves against black bodies instead of criminals, we lose the power to tell the difference and respond accordingly.
Between 2012-13 and 2013-14, there was a general increase in violent property crimes, such as street or public robberies, house and business robberies and vehicle-hijacking. These are the kinds of crimes associated with organised crime syndicates. Africa Check says that street robbery primarily affects the poor and typically occurs as people travel to and from work, school or shops. Improving visible policing reduced street robberies, but, according to Africa Check, the police have observed that improved visible policing pushes robbers to target houses, businesses and vehicles instead.
The Department of Arts and Culture defines social cohesion as "the degree of social integration and inclusion in communities and society at large, and the extent to which mutual solidarity finds expression among individuals and communities", and a community as a society cohesive "to the extent that the inequalities, exclusions and disparities based on ethnicity, gender, class, nationality, age, disability or any other distinctions which engender divisions distrust and conflict are reduced and/or eliminated in a planned and sustained manner".
This cohesion is significant to building safer communities. We were robbed in a family restaurant in a suburban neighbourhood as people drove and walked past. No one could tell the difference between black people who are part of the neighbourhood and those who are not.
Black bodies are always synonymous with criminality. Black men as the security guards who failed to stop the criminals. The heavily padded black man from ADT who takes 10 minutes to respond to the scene, and the two black policemen who took another 20 minutes to eventually arrive and deal with the crime.
Criminalising all these black bodies has done nothing to solve crime.
Ndlovu is deputy MD at Livity Africa. She writes in her personal capacity
This article first appeared in Business Day
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