The violence in our society is too intractable to “fix”. We need to start at the beginning, says Murray Williams.
Cape Town – The more one reads about the murder of little Courtney Pieters, the more depressing the story gets.
Mortimer Saunders is the most notorious man in Cape Town right now.
But the 3-year-old’s death in Elsies River says as much about our society as it does about the “family friend” who allegedly imposed his evil upon her.
Shanaaz Matthews of the UCT Children’s Institute discovered that 454 children were murdered in 2009 – more child murders than in any other country in the world.
Those of us in newsrooms at the turn of the last century are still haunted by the murders of girls such as Valencia Farmer and Sasha-Leigh Crook.
Their killings disembowelled our hope for a brighter, post-apartheid future. Almost two decades later, the pain feels the same.
Minister of Police Fikile Mbalula said communities had been “terrorised for years”.
It seems that everyone is complicit. Some blame “lack of services”, like street lighting.
Some decry insufficient aftercare for children with working parents.
Others blame chemical addiction, or unemployment. Some accuse the police. But Childline’s Joan van Niekerk warns that increased policing, while obviously crucial, will only shift abuse indoors.
Reverend Philip Bam cites adults’ “materialism” and their neglect of proper parenting.
Our whole society should be in the dock with Saunders, it seems.
There’s no “silver bullet”, no “magic remedy”.
But we can still think deeply and choose priorities.
About six months ago, we were talking about safety in one of our most notorious suburbs. Everyone had their say – police commanders to ordinary civilians.
Then a doctor stood up.
He described how “everything wrong with our society” is often reflected in a point of confluence: the local hospital’s casualty unit, on a Saturday night. How our vast array of societal failings find terrible unified expression in the man carried in at 2am, half dead, with a knife in his head.
And the doctor then said: “If we want to change what our casualty unit looks like 20 years from now, if we want our future to be less violent, the single most important action we must take is: “The First 1000 Days programme”.
From a child’s conception until its second birthday is a unique window of opportunity towards a healthier future.
“If we can improve children’s first 1000 days and then run further ‘Early Childhood Development’ properly, that’ll have more impact than anything else we could ever do to improve our safety.”
Essentially, the violence in our society is too intractable to “fix”. We need to start at the beginning.
* Williams’ “Shooting from the Lip” column appears in the Cape Argus every Monday.