Child Molestation

Our Favourite Hobby-Horse

Well, here we go again! On the e-tv news tonight (19/6/06) there was a story about two eleven-year-old girls in Cape Town who were picked up by a paedophile. Yes, you got it – Child Molestation par excellence. It seems that the great and heinous dereliction of duty was on the part of the SAPS who, despite the matter having been reported to them, have so far done nothing.

Now, if I understand correctly, the complaint was lodged by these two delightful children, not because they had been molested (e-tv’s word not mine), but in the end because one girl had been paid R5 more than the other for her services.

It is quite clear, therefore, that these children were not complaining about the terrible things done to them or the amount of physical suffering they were made to endure, but the cause of their complaint was simply that they had not been fairly paid for their services.

I can only say that, under the circumstances, the SAPS have my full support in ignoring the complaint altogether.

Child molestation is South Africa’s favourite hobby-horse, and, it seems, one that will be flogged way past the point of death. These two girls knew full well what they were getting into and, it seems, were none the worse for the experience; they were quite happy to accept money for indecent acts and the illegal use of their bodies. The only reason that the story ever saw the official light of day was that one was paid slightly more than the other.

It is high time that we re-evaluated what we consider to be a child; these were not children in the sense of the word that you or I might understand; they were prostitutes, plain and simple. They were quite prepared to sell themselves in return for a small financial reward and were not in the least concerned how their story would impact on the life of the perpetrator – the lonely man who picked them up, took them home, no doubt bathed them (I sincerely hope so), had his wicked way with them, and then paid them. This scenario had not happened once but quite a number of times without any complaint.

Now, bleeding hearts, come out of the woodwork and start chaining yourselves to railings and waving placards in front of police stations complaining that the police are not doing their jobs. Whilst I am no proponent of sex with under-age children, I am certainly not so silly as to believe that the guilty party is always the adult. In this case, the ‘children’ should be found guilty of entrapment and engaging in under-age prostitution and should be punished accordingly.

Let’s get it right just for once and allow the police to get on with the job of preventing real crime and arresting real criminals.

The Curse of Modern Telecommunications

In these times of high-speed communication in all spheres there is one system that makes all our lives difficult: the Automated Voice Answering system.

In a country with a remarkably high rate of unemployment, one would think it sensible to employ human beings to answer telephones, especially when most large concerns now have these awful things called ‘call centres’. However, it seems that this is not the case. The greatest form of frustration that most large organisations subject us to goes like this:

You dial the number (generally prefixed by 0860) and, after two rings, a machine picks up the line and says:

“Good day; you are now connected to Grabitallandspring Banking. If you would like this message in English please press one, in Afrikaans press two, in Zulu press three, in Xhosa press four, in Sotho press five, in Shangaan press six, in Ndebele press seven, in Pedi press eight, in Tswana press nine, in Siswati press ten” and so-on.

You press a number. The machine begins again:

“For account enquiries please press one, for debit orders press two, for stop orders press three, for investment banking press four, for savings accounts press five, for transmission accounts press six,” etc. You press a number.

The machine continues:

“If you know the number of the extension to which you wish to speak please press it now; if your enquiry is of a general nature please press one, for our accounts department please press two, or hold for the next available operator.”

Uncertain of what to do now, you hold. The machine once again begins to speak:

“For security purposes this call is being recorded.” Some sort of canned muzak now takes over the line, punctuated every now and then with “Your call is important to us so please hold for the next available operator”. You wait. The voice begins again:

“Grabitallandspring Bank offers you the best and widest option of home loans available on today’s market.” You hold.

“Did you know,” the machine continues, “that over 500 000 people subscribe to our on-line newsletter explaining how to exhaust the public’s patience without us paying one single employee or using one extra man-hour?” The muzak is back for a few moments.

“Your call is important to us, so please hold for the next available operator.”

Nine minutes (yes, I’ve counted them) have now passed and I have yet to speak to a human being; I have almost forgotten why I phoned this number in the first place. Eventually, if I keep the connection open long enough and if I haven’t run screaming into the street, a human being whispers in an almost inaudible and usually incomprehensible voice “You’re speaking to Thandi; how can I help you?”

“Could you please speak up; I can hardly hear.” The voice continues to whisper and you press the phone into your ear so hard that it nearly comes out the other side of your head.

“I need to know to what address you are sending your statements because I have not received one for some months now.”

“What is your account number?”

“123456789”

“Please hold.” The muzak is back, the advertising is back; you can almost hear the tape machine whirring. Minutes pass before the line clicks and the voice once more begins to whisper.

“What is your identity number?”

“I’m sorry; I can’t hear you. Please speak up.” The voice repeats the question in a slightly louder whisper. Perhaps it is you who are going deaf?

“What is your identity number?”

“123456789”

“Please hold.” The line clicks and you are back with the muzak and the advertising. Two minutes pass.

“What is your address?”

You give the address and once again the muzak cuts in. Two minutes pass.

“Thankyou for holding. What sort of account is it?”

You have now been on the phone for at least fifteen minutes and have achieved nothing; the person at the other end of the line is probably in Calcutta because wages are lower there and the only body gaining from this exercise in frustration is Telkom, so, in sheer frustration and annoyance, you slam down the phone and decide it would be better for you to drive thirty kilometres to the nearest branch where you can wait in line and, eventually, speak to a living, breathing, understanding human being who at least knows what he/she is doing.

You may consider this absurd, but I can assure you it’s not. What you have read above is a verbatim transcript of a call to a well-known bank in an effort to obtain a statement on a particular account. To date no such statement has been provided; I have taken approximately five years off my lifespan, and Telkom has become immeasurable richer.

Perhaps we should all go to Mauritius and let the machines take over our lives back home; who knows, they may even learn to talk to each other?

Tribal Customs and the Spread of Aids

At last someone has managed to hit the nail on the head (Why AIDS cases are so high in Africa – Mukaronda). A great deal of hot air and paper have been expended on various campaigns which hope to do something to arrest the spread of this terrible virus, and so far without success. It is heartening to read that someone has indeed tried to tell us that one of the main reasons these campaigns have failed is because African men are supposed to enjoy more than one partner at a time and that the use of condoms is strictly against cultural principles.

So now we have the main reason that these campaigns have failed; we have the cause but seem to be far away from any kind of solution. If you look back in history you will see just how short-sighted and foolish many of these customs are (the story of Nongause is a perfect example) and how they are at total odds with life as it is today. However, changing the beliefs and mindset of an entire continent is going to be very difficult indeed.

We have been regaled on a daily basis with the events of the Zuma rape trial and, while I have no axe to grind for either side, the incredible ignorance of both Zuma and the complainant is staggering. The judge has tried to apply European thinking to both parties, but I feel this is wrong. The complainant was probably utterly unaware that unprotected sex with any partner could expose her to a fresh infection because there are many forms of the virus; she probably thought that, once infected, she had nothing further to lose; Zuma’s attempt at hiding within cultural norms and thinking is also completely foolish, although he would not be at such risk as the complainant, unless the activity in which he indulged was so strenuous as to cause him injury. In any case, he had the good sense to shower afterwards! Ho hum!

In a country where the erstwhile Minister of Health advocated a diet of beetroot and African potato in preference to anti-retrovirals, despite the fact that the latter have been proven to be beneficial in lengthening the life-span of those infected with the virus, while the former is nothing more than a home remedy, speaks for itself.

We Europeans have learned, over many centuries, that certain behaviour is not only highly dangerous but also total anathema to today’s way of life. Once upon a time we also engaged in sacrifices and believed in appeasing our ancestors; the ancient Egyptians were always buried with their most treasured possessions and they even had food in their sarcophagi in the belief that they would need it to sustain them on their journey to the afterlife. We have come a long way, but it has taken us thousands of years to do so, and to believe that a people who were not exposed to the same history as ourselves could change their customs literally overnight is absurd.

As with the people who followed Nongause’s advice and slaughtered their cattle, bringing upon themselves terrible consequences, so with tribal custom and modern medicine. The one simply serves to negate the other and will continue to do so until a sufficient number of people have died, the race is decimated and people begin to wake up and see that perhaps a change in custom and behaviour is necessary in order to solve the problem.

Hopefully, Mukaronda can show the way and start to effect the changes in thinking that are long overdue. Only when one has had the misfortune to watch someone close die of this terrible syndrome can you begin to urge the living to do something positive to save themselves, and that something, unfortunately, consists of a great deal more than merely resorting to home remedies and ‘boereraat’. There is no place for ignorance in these enlightened times of 2006.

The Wild West in South Africa

Democracy notwithstanding, we still live in the Wild West.

For those of you who have read and who remember your history lessons The Great Trek took place in the early part of the 19th century. As I understand it, the Trek took place because the stout patriarchal Afrikaner was loath to live under the unwanted yoke of British law and order, so in order to continue his lifestyle of bible in one hand and gun in the other, he upped stumps and sought pastures new out of reach of the stifling authorities of the day.

Despite many intervening years which should have acted as a poultice on this wound of unruliness, it would seem that old habits do indeed die hard.

The story I am about to tell all took place, in the Cape, between February and May this year.

On two occasions since my arrival here in 1968 I have had the somewhat chilling experience of driving along and seeing one of my rear wheels overtaking me. The first time I had this experience was in Durban on a late afternoon in spring when I had just fetched my car from the garage which had repaired the rear brakes. I was in the usual heavy traffic in West St when suddenly I saw one of my rear wheels pass me on the left and flatten a queue of people waiting for a bus.

The second occurrence was in February this year; I had just retrieved my vehicle from the garage which had repaired the rear brakes and was on my way home. Suddenly, in the middle of the N7, the left rear wheel and half-shaft of the vehicle bounced past me, crossed the road and sailed over a fence into a field of ostriches.

That was on a Friday; the towing service was called and the vehicle was returned to the garage responsible. However, they refused to accept delivery and instead instructed that the car be sent to an engineering shop a few blocks away. The engineering shop refused to accept the vehicle and so, when I went in search of same on the Monday morning, I found the car in the yard belonging to the local scrap dealers who are also the towing service. I paid for the tow and returned to the garage responsible for the repairs and suggested that they sort the matter out.

The following morning I learned that the car had been taken back to the engineering shop and, when I asked for an estimate for the repairs, I was told that these had already been finished, although I had given no authorisation for any work to proceed. However, because of other damage which occurred when the wheel parted from the vehicle, the car could not be started.

We now jump about six weeks to just before Easter when I once more retrieved the repaired vehicle from the garage. After driving the 22 kms back home, I discovered that the other rear wheel was overheating and that there seemed to be a problem with the gear linkage and the brakes on that side.

Another mechanic was called and ten days later the matter was sorted out. Although I had paid for the original repairs and the towing, no invoice had been received from the engineers.

At the end of April I received a phone call from the engineers asking why they had not been paid. I asked them to fax me an invoice and promised payment in due course. The invoice arrived almost immediately and was so enormous as to warrant further investigation. I immediately faxed a letter to the engineers asking them to explain how they could charge me more than three times the amount that the final garage had been paid for the same work to the opposite rear wheel. There was no reply.

Once more, last week the engineers phoned and asked when they could expect payment; I referred them to my letter, which they claimed not to have received. When I checked the fax number in the phone book with them, it appeared that this number was incorrect and I was given another number to which I immediately faxed the letter. Their invoice bore no phone numbers at all. I then made an appointment to go in and discuss the matter with the owner of the engineering business last Friday.

When I arrived there was no owner in sight; however, after a phone call he duly appeared. It was abundantly clear that he had not read the letter (he probably couldn’t read English anyway) and soon became even clearer that he had no interest in its contents whatsoever. His only interest was in being paid the full amount immediately.

When I attempted to discuss the matter he simply walked away, shouting over his shoulder that he had parked directly behind my vehicle in his yard and that I could not leave his premises until the amount had been settled in full. Any attempt to discuss the matter further or to remonstrate with him was in vain.

So there I stood, in a cold and windy shed at the end of the industrial area, without any means of departure, unable to offer him a cheque because he had made it quite plain that this was not acceptable, unable to pay with a credit card because he had no facilities with which to accept this, and with a mere R40 in my pocket.

I should be grateful, of course, that he didn’t hold me at gunpoint; I quite expected he would. Eventually I was able to talk my way out of the situation with one of his employees, who kindly removed the vehicle blocking my exit and allowed me to leave.

It seems that the old saying ‘The more things change the more they stay the same’ applies here. I am now laying charges of extortion and demanding money with menaces with the local police. It seems we are still living in the Wild West and that the old story about only those who couldn’t read crossing the Orange River was just that: only a story.