Violent crime – South Africa's long-running sore exposed in Trump meeting

Daily Maverick

25-05-2025

The Oval Office mugging of President Cyril Ramaphosa by US President Donald Trump brought many issues in our society to light. Chief among them is crime. While it is right to decry Trump's lies and the use of our problems for his purposes, it still exposes the complete lack of urgency in dealing with them.
Many people would have felt several emotions watching Trump berate President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday evening. Frustration might well have been the first and overwhelming response.
Also, there would been anger at someone lying about us, literally to our face, and Trump's refusal to accept that he was lying. But underneath that, perhaps for many people, was a sense of deep unease.
The stuff about our society that we prefer to forget, that we prefer to hide, was being aired on international TV for all to see.
Crime and violence have been such big elements in our society for so long that it is easy to forget how bad it really is.
Last week, days before National Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola announced that the murder rate had declined in the first three months of this year, the home of Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane was burgled.
Among the goods stolen was sound equipment, including a soundbar.
Reports suggest that police officers were on the property at the time, as you would expect at the private home of a premier. Somehow, someone was able to smuggle what is usually a long and heavy piece of equipment past the front gate.
What is most amazing about this is that the news report was hardly discussed. While it was a busy news week, you would expect a robbery like this to incite massive discussion.
Instead, the reaction of many people, if they heard about it at all, was not to even shrug their shoulders.
While violent crime has become so normalised that township residents organise their own 'walking buses' to taxi ranks in the cold of our winter mornings, and community groups arrange their own patrols at night, we still expect our economy to grow.
How can anyone expect our economy to grow and create jobs when business owners are literally under siege from violence?
Would you, after watching the President, Cosatu leader Zingiswa Losi and Johann Rupert explaining our violent crime to the US, invest in South Africa? Would it be the place where you put someone else's pension money?
Lacking legitimacy
Of course, the roots of this run deep.
Because the police were used first by colonial authorities, then the apartheid government, to enforce unjust rules, we have never had a police service with proper legitimacy.
Over the years, senior police officers have both been used by politicians, and used politicians, to the point that it is almost accepted (who can forget how Richard Mdluli once wrote a letter to then president Jacob Zuma saying that he would help him win the ANC's Mangaung conference).
In KwaZulu-Natal, a province with both a very high murder rate and high levels of political contestation, the violence monitor Mary de Haas has consistently explained how the police are politicised. In her view, this has been the case since long before 1994.
While President Cyril Ramaphosa and others in his national coalition claim that their first priority is to grow the economy and create jobs, they appear to forget how important dealing with crime is to this.
Of course, one underpins the other. A lack of jobs leads to more violence, more violence leads to fewer jobs.
While our society will be difficult to police for several generations to come, it is important to notice that not a single ANC leader has made crime the priority it should be.
While Thabo Mbeki consistently underplayed its importance (he and his ministers at the time appeared to suggest white people were complaining too much about crime), others, such as Zuma and Ramaphosa, have made promises at various times.
But none has spoken consistently about crime or made it a focal point of a campaign.
Considering how many millions of voters live under the threat of a violent death for themselves and their children, this is an oddity. It suggests that perhaps these leaders believe that they have no control over the problem, that nothing they do could make a difference.
Politics and patronage
In the minds of some voters, there may also be the perception that some politicians are linked to crime in some ways … or that our politicians are simply too scared to act.
Consider the case of Zuma. His lawyers once said in court that if he were jailed again, the violence that followed his arrest in 2021 would be repeated. It was a clear indication that there was a link between him and the violence that killed more than 300 people.
Despite big promises, there have been virtually no consequences for those who were responsible for what happened. Worse, it was clear even as the orchestrated violence was happening that there would be no consequences. Zuma did it because he knew he would get away with it.
This leads to the suspicion that among the reasons for this is that Ramaphosa, or some around him, feel it would be politically dangerous to prosecute Zuma … or even investigate him.
Of course, the fact that our criminal justice system has been unable to win convictions against those accused, so publicly, of corruption during the State Capture era also adds to the culture of impunity.
The problems may go even deeper.
In 2023, Masemola suspended the Mpumalanga Police Commissioner Daphney Manamela, after it emerged she had received gifts from police officers.
From legal papers (she challenged his intention to suspend her), it emerged she had encouraged personnel at police stations to give her gifts (of up to R60,000 in one case) because she was the first woman police commissioner in the province.
If you were a police officer, putting your life on the line daily to help people, and then asked to contribute from your meagre salary to give a Smeg toaster to someone who is paid more than you, how would you react?
This is an astonishing illustration of how some senior officers treat other police officers.
Cultural shift required
All of this suggests that to get on top of crime, much needs to change. Current police minister Senzo Mchunu has given every indication that he is determined to make this change happen.
However, his powers are limited – he has no day-to-day control of the police and can only provide some form of oversight.
What is needed is a comprehensive and determined effort. It would need to involve all politicians, all community leaders, virtually everyone.
It would also have to include a comprehensive change in the police, not just in terms of management, but culture.
Unfortunately, despite the very real political gain (among so many other goods to our society) that could come from this, it appears almost certain that no political party will lead this effort.
Thus, we are doomed to bring up yet more generations under the threat of the most ghastly violence. DM