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The Blogosphere is no doubt about to light up like a 10 MW bulb over the brutal Stellenbosch police raids (aka how the SAPS treats shabeen patrons during and AFTER Apartheid)

I went to Stellenbosch, I lived there for 4 years, I loved and lived in Bohemia for large portions of my student life; and saw it for what it was, a chilled student hang out. Now that peace has been shattered by a brutal police raid. White police men throwing and beating white students. Who needs racism when you have the savages of the SAPS around?

No doubt the police men were acting on orders from above (as no doubt their fathers did when they helped Steve Biko slip on some soap) : what this really serves to indicate is that the South African Police Force hasn’t transformed in the least; the police is rife with greed, crime, corruption on the one hand, and brutal and excessive violence and un-useful crime “fighting” on the other.

I don’t think violence such as this will, or should, serve as a catalyst for the disbanding of the police, or even police reform. The violence showed in Stellenbosch was excessive, unnecessary, brutal and cruel. No different to the brutality meted out daily in the townships for decades by “police” : actually sadists on the state pay roll. Clearly nothing has changed; our country is lawless and violent because those who should protect us, serve us, and secure us whilst fighting criminals and bringing them to justice are in fact often deeply criminal and violent themselves.

I know, and will always state, that the SAPS is filled with many well meaning men and women who try their best to achieve the intended aims of the police force. But the government and the people must acknowledge the truth: the SAPS was always an organisation of violence and oppression. Trying to reform it or integrate it is like trying to integrate the Gestapo or the SS; these were organisations of evil, sometimes with good men and women, but generally evil. The SAPS is NO DIFFERENT!

Its goal was the oppression of black people. That was its goal. Now its goals has widened to the oppression of all South Africans. How can we legitimise and organisation which has so COMPLETELY failed to secure the safety of our country. Let’s disband the police so that we can start throwing these thugs and criminals were they belong, in prison with the criminals, there continued failure to police, that have been spawned in the New South Africa.

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Filed under: Commentary, Corruption, Crime, Ideas, Law, Politics, Society, ethics by Andrew la Grange