Stabbings And Violence South African Menace

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28265, 1 May 1957, Page 16

Stabbings And Violence South African Menace

(From a Reuter Correspondent)

PRETORIA. Stabbing and crimes of violence have now become a national menace in South Africa, according to the Penal Reform League, whose headquarters are in Pretoria. “The knife tends to become the ruler of many under-privi-leged communities,” said the league in a recent newsletter, “and the time is ripe for white, black and brown South Africa to take stock of the frightening outburst of violence which threatens the foundations of social peace in our land. “We cannot stop the rot by an increase of violent countermeasures. What in wanted is a programme of long-term social action which may stem the tide of this evil, or at least break the tidal wave through the creation of a chain of breakerchannels.” The league gives figures in support of its claim that in spite of the more severe measures, including flogging, taken against those convicted of violence, cases of stabbing have steadily increased during the last 15 years in the Union. In 1940, there were 1349 cases of stabbing involving 1144 African men and 118 African women. In 27 incidents, the attacker was not found.

In 1955, the number of stabbing cases was 6080, involving 5166 African men and 888 African women. In 26 incidents, culprits were not traced. Those flogged for crimes of violence in 1940 numbered 1864. They received 12,070 strokes. In 1954, 14,379 persons were flogged, receiving 78,573 strokes. Police Force The League said that the ‘‘most powerful deterrent to crime is a strong police force. Serious efforts have been made to increase the Police Force.” “From a total of 8705 policemen for a population of about 6,000,000 in 1913, South Africa reached a number of 22,840 policemen for a population of about 14,000,000 in 1954. “Prosecutions increased during that time from 46 per 1000 to 112 per 1000.” Two experts have recently given their views on the increase in violence in South Africa. Mr Justice W. H. Ramsbottom, a well-known Johannesburg Judge, said: “No law can effectively prevent persons from carrying knives.” As among Europeans, the carrying of revolvers “for protection” spreads rapidly, so among non-Europeans the carrying of knives, also “for

protection,” spreads. But when a man carries a weapon he often succumbs to the temptation to use it, particularly if he is not disciplined and if his inhibitions are weakened by drink, or his anger is aroused.”

Mr Justice Ramsbottom noted that a great many stabbings were committed by adolescents and very young men and said that possession of a knife gives power and inflates the ego of an inferior man.

“Is it possible that these young men are conscious of inferiority?” he asked. “They are neither boys nor men; neither at school nor at work; men without a man’s status and dignity. Is that perhaps the reason for their conduct?”

The Director of the League (the Rev. H. P. Junod) expressed the view that the real cause for the outburst of violence was the insecurity of the economy of the urban Bantu family in which every unit must find a means of increasing the communal income, legally or illegally; a dangerous relaxation of adult control over young persons; and a sense of acute resentment directly caused by the numerous and harassing regulations imposed upon them—in short, a set of conditions in which individual values were ignored. Collective Frustration

“All this,” Mr Junod said, “has given the people an attitude of antagonism towards the social order in which they live and arouses in them an immediate and violent reaction to anything more troubling them. There is a collective feeling of frustration which undermines social peace. “In almost every case of stabbing, drink, the first-class enemy of peace in the community, can be seen at work.

“The fact that legal prohibition is enforced (among Africans) does not prevent the concoction of strong alcoholic beverages with names like ‘kill me quick’—so quick in action that all the resistance of the will is almost immediately blotted out.”

Mr Junod enumerated other explanations for the increase in violence as a lack of recreation facilities, and the refusal to allow Africans to organise themselves against crimes on the person/ and said: “The authorities, the schools, the family and the Church, which are ramparts of humanity, must dethrone the knife, the panga, the assegai, and the revolver from their privileged position in the community and in the hearts of men.”