Yes Hawks! More please!

It’s becoming increasingly rare to come across stories that make one feel positive about South Africa. One such rare moment happened recently when Hawks head General Godfrey Lebeya announced some impressive statistics.

Over 700 arrests and 280 convictions in the first three months of 2023 sounds fantastic. Maybe less than fantastic considering our situation, but it’s certainly a grand start in the right direction.

Crime effects all of SA

A destabilising factor in South Africa is the crime; when a person gets murdered, we lose their skills and any investment we’ve put into them. Similarly, when a shop gets robbed, we lose that economic activity. If looting happens, it increases the cost of insurance and we all lose. Crime doesn’t just affect the victim. The secondary effect hurts the nation. What few realise is that while there will be many crimes perpetrated on a variety of victims, the secondary effect always hits the same entity: South Africa.

Criminals were allowed to roam with a sense of immunity since it appears that arrests were scarcely made and investigations poorly done. Even if that changed, the judicial process was long, arduous and flawed. I think the last scary thing to worry criminals was an overzealous Bheki Cele punting the “shoot to kill” line, but even that didn’t have many teeth.

Imagine the surprise when we heard about a police shootout in KwaZulu-Natal this week where the cops took out five suspects who opened fire and the good guys sustained no injuries. That’s the kind of thing we should like to hear about. Death might not be something to get excited about, least of all death by cop, but to know, with evidence that the police can hold their own in a gun fight… that’s impressive.

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To know that the Hawks are actually getting things done, perhaps not at a rapid rate yet but regardless, is also impressive.

When you drive down a broken road, pass the leaking sewage, with your brights on to compensate for the non-functional street lights to go to the police, it’s nice to think that you’re going there for more than just a case number to take to your insurer. That was a nicety many had volunteered to waive because we had little reason to expect it.

Belief in law enforcement

Now, with these stats, we can actually see some fruition and have some belief in our law enforcement; some evidence-based belief no less.

It’s small and perhaps a desperate reach for something to be positive about but if it is something foreshadowing, that’s quite remarkable.

Maybe some will be shallow and find it remarkable for the reason that finally some people are getting nailed by the law. That is indeed something to celebrate. It’s just not as awesome as witnessing that the law is working. That should be setting fireworks off. Perhaps it’s not as swift as would be ideal. Perhaps there are still many holes in the system. That’s all something we can admit.

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It’s just that before we start plugging the holes and making it better, we need to know that it will work, at least somewhat. We have that now. We’ve been promised that for a long time and delivery has been slower than Zuma getting his day in court but if we’re going to make it out of this tunnel, there needs to be light at the end of it.

What this gives us is knowledge that the light is there. We don’t see that light yet but we know it’s there. We don’t know if we have the resources to make it to the light but we know it’s there. We don’t know if we will all survive the trek to the light but we know it’s there.

It’s not much but we finally have some hope and after everything we’re going through, that’s a breath of fresh air with no tyre smoke.