We failed to protect this child. Not the police, not his parents, not the law. All of us, writes Muhammed Nagdee.
Johannesburg - The story of 4-year-old Taegrin Morris’s death is haunting me. I keep thinking about what was going through this child’s mind as he dangled out the side of the car, being dragged through the streets in agonising pain.
I see my own children through his eyes. I feel their panic. I sense their fear. I understand their torment. My heart fills with anger and my eyes with tears. No human being should have to endure such trauma, let alone a child – a child whose picture reflected an innocent little soul. A child with a vibrant smile and sparkle in his eye. A child who could have grown up to become anything and anyone.
Instead, this child was ripped from his mother’s arms and put through an experience, which showed the true meaning of the word “beast”.
We are all beasts.
We have all become heartless beasts, cannibalising each other through our indifference.
So many of us want to glorify ourselves and feel proud of our 67 minutes dedicated to Mandela Day – dedicated to the idea of giving back. But giving back means more than a public show of charity.
It means looking after one another, valuing each other more than our cars and our possessions – considering the safety of every citizen and ensuring the cost of living does not equate to the cost of a life.
These petty criminals who ripped out the heart of a family were probably so high on drugs they didn’t even realise the poor child was hanging from the car. Or worse, didn’t care.
How does any human being care so little about another life – care so little about the life and well-being of a harmless little boy?
The community is calling for murder. The police are offering rewards. People are phoning into radio stations to express their outrage and calling for lawmakers and protectors to seek out these monsters. And then what? Catch them? Send them to jail? Punish them? To what end?
It’s too late.
We failed to protect this child. Not the police, not his parents, not the law. All of us. There is no one to blame – except all of us.
We failed to create a society where our children are safe, where the only monsters that exist are those in the fairy tales we read them every night when we put them to bed.
I’m angry. I’m afraid for my own children. But most of all, I’m sad and tormented by this affliction we have towards one another.
Have I lost faith in humanity? No. I’ve lost faith in South Africans and the idea of what it meant to be South African.
Being South African used to equate to pride, unity and strength – not any more.
Were all the sacrifices of the past in vain? Did Nelson Mandela, our elders and struggle heroes endure those years of imprisonment and suffering to afford us a freedom in which we pay such a high cost to live “freely”?
We have traded the chains of racism for the chains of capitalism. Cash is king; life is nothing.
If the cost of living wasn’t so immense, if the knock-on effect wasn’t the high rate of unemployment, if in turn, people were not turning to crime to sustain themselves and as a result abusing substances to escape the harsh reality of day-to-day life, then maybe, just maybe, that little boy would have been tucked away safely in bed tonight, rather than his body lying torn and tattered in a morgue.
Muhammed Nagdee
Joburg
* The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Newspapers.
The Star