Those following the news of this country might have noticed a recent headline: ANOTHER KWEREKWERE KILLED BY COPS. The fact that before being murdered in a cell he was filmed being tied to the back of a police van and dragged along the street as it drove off puts this in the news; the fact that cops were acting like this openly in front of dozens of onlookers shows how ‘new’ this news really is.
At Lindela ‘Repatriation Centre’ (= Deportation camp where all those deemed by the authorities to be ‘illegal’ are interned, tortured, extorted, insulted, and finally: deported, released or killed) a handful die every year – almost every month. An old Minister of ‘Home Affairs’ said – a long time ago - “If there are any deaths as a result of torture, I want a full report.” Presumably ordinary maiming, paralysis, blinding and other petty injury resulting from torture is not worth wasting the ink and effort of important bureaucrats who, after all, have to supervise repression throughout the whole of South Africa.
With this as the attitude of the people in charge; it is of course no surprise that ordinary murder by cops is not considered news-worthy. There are more deaths in police custody now than there were during the state of emergency in the ’80s. Those who, because they are too poor to buy their way out of jail through bribes and good lawyers, end up in prison after a conviction, are subjected to routine torture, sometimes at the hand of British subcontractors: deliberately criminalised workers are crushed by the managers of this neo-colonial hell in places like Marikana, and the deliberately criminalised underclass (the unemployed, the landless, the homeless, the undocumented) are crushed by the same scum in dungeons like Pollsmoor, St Albans and Manguang, where 'scandal' continuously erupts concerning the abuse of inmates. How many more never make it to the cells — murdered by the defenders of civilisation in the line of duty? How many do the forces of law and order murder with preventable disease and starvation? How many are forced to die hustling or driven to madness and suicide? How many are condemned to a living-death day after day, confined to an existence of planned misery in a coffin of dead-time grown to encompass each waking moment? In what way was Mido Macia’s death exceptional?
Like countless others, I too have been punished by the state for refusing to surrender my own dignity to its divine authority; I too have been forced to the floor by a gang of police; I too have struggled while the black boots of black boers pinned my hair, neck, chest, arms and legs to the pavement; I too have felt grubby hands forcibly enter my person as if I were a thing; I too have cried out in anguish; I too have resisted being detained, interrogated, searched, and manhandled at the whim of thugs in uniform. If my accent happened to be wrong, or if there were not as many wealthy people around; I too might have ended up dead in a jail cell: a cadaver (the perfect citizen, the perfectly submissive political subject) no longer around speak blasphemies to you or the cops.
Why should it be any different? In a world governed by dirt — where scum rises to the top; it is natural for pigs to root around wherever and however they please. Nothing to see here. Nothing to report. Do not block the traffic. Move along.
We could modify the Honourable Minister’s words to formulate the policy of news editors (and the pseudo-critical commentators of the intelligentsia whose tongues trail behind every public spectacle): “If there are any deaths caught on camera, I want a full report”. If not, not. No wonder then that in Alabama they have a blues that goes
Another man done gone:
Another man done gone.
Another man done gone:
This 'Justice' just 'us conned'.
Another man done gone.
I never knew his name:
I never knew his name.
I never knew his name:
It kills me just the same.
I never knew his name.
(Some alterations have been made to keep lyrics up to date, but the spirit is the same. Curious readers can hear the original here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=749523cHwyc)
The heap of corpses grows day by day, so vast is seems to be without beginning or end.
Marikana, Kronstadt, Macia & Tatane, Sacco & Vanzetti, Soweto & Shanghai…
Who said we left Jim-Crow? Colonial Occupation? Serfdom? Apartheid? Slavery? The modernisation of misery continues apace, the agents of the established order call it Progress.
They may mow us down under their lies now, but the day is coming when we will make them choke on their law-codes, their Constitutions and their I.D. papers.
Siddiq Khan
March 2013
