Rule Number one is T.I.A (This is Africa)

in #journalism7 years ago

Depending on your definition of freedom this next story will either be an exciting experience, or a terrifying one. Either way its hugely important and fascinates me as a citizen of this splendidly messed up but amazingly free country. There is no simple way to put it, so here goes. It is ridiculously easy to do illegal things in South Africa. That’s right, land of the free, home of the brave, sounds like a slogan for life in South Africa to me. Laws are more like guidelines around these parts meaning you can do pretty much whatever you want if you have big enough balls.
Now there are countries where some legitimate legal laws are by our moral definition “wrong”. These laws can be harmful to societies freedoms and can keep you from attaining true joy in this life. It could be a malicious forced law of the land and if broken it is punishable by prison or even death. For example, in the past with slavery being legal, and in modern times in countries like North Korea where certain freedoms are seemingly illegal. The laws of these governments were, and are, simply wrong. Furthermore, governments can simply change laws when and if they chose and slowly implement the changes. For example, the prohibition of alcohol by America being overturned just about a century ago. Similarly, In the modern times we have seen the prohibition of cannabis coming to an end. So, at one point something was illegal and people suffered due to those laws. Now simply due to the passage of time and some rethinking by government the law changes and the exact same act in the exact same place is completely legal. My point being just because its illegal or legal does not make it a bad or good thing respectively in truth. Do you agree? However, I do believe some laws are universally virtuous and honestly, we as humans can agree on some basic truths about right and wrong.
South Africa has laws, but basically the police don’t apply the laws. Instead if you have some money or even if you just speak smoothly enough, a police man will let you get off easily. This works with minor offences from true life accounts that “my friends” have told me.
You can easily get away with drinking alcohol and driving, so if you like to party hard, you would like this fact. A person who is young and makes a mistake with drugs can easily get away with minimal consequences. This might be a good thing, where people can change their lives, without ruining it by losing a driving license for life or getting a criminal record due to addiction. Those people could remain free and one day become better human beings serving to make the world a better place. However, the sad truth is the bribes are wildly out of control and causes more problems than it ever could imaginably fix in South Africa.
Due to the poor police, with bribes being taken for most minor to mid-level offenses and beyond, crime is almost unstoppable. Due to the ease of escape by criminals before or even after capture, the amount of crimes are increasing. Besides Criminals bribing police when actual crimes are committed the general corruption has honestly encroached into the general hearts of our people. We all do the same thing in South Africa, just look into what we did about E-Tol as an entire country. People steal electricity and rig their home meters, then bribe meter reading officials. People bribe police to turn a blind eye to the sale of stolen stock. Hard working, Good people, turning to corrupt behavior. Did you know that this was the reason South Africa's crime is so high. It is almost exclusively due to corruption and incompetency starting in the police and nothing else. more people need to talk about this matter honestly.

This post was about real police corruption and how its playing out right now. In my next story ill be exposing something big. We have a form of unofficial police that we have in my neighborhood that is not spoken of in the media. a form of community military militia made up of small groups of the European demographic population in this country… but more on that next time. This is truly going to be a wild ride.
I will get videos and first-hand accounts of my own journalism as I grow, for now check out this YouTube videos validating my story

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