Head of the Occult-related Crime Unit, Colonel=20 Kobus Jonker, in The Mark Gevisser Profile=20
There’s a child’s drawing, on Colonel Kobus=20 Jonker’s pinboard, of two stick-figures with arms=20 flailing against each other in a crayon-sea of=20 bileful yellow. One figure is labelled, in=20 childlike script, “Oom Kobus”; the other is=20 labelled “Satanis”. The drawing was sent to the=20 head of the Occult-related Crime Unit of the South=20 African Police Services by one of his many young=20 fans. =20
Also on the pinboard is a religious-kitsch poster=20 of a waterfall, with a quotation from the Book of=20 John, and a photo of silver charms that were=20 implanted in a 15-year-old girl’s vagina and=20 between her eyes without her knowledge during a=20 satanic induction. Up here, on the sixth floor of=20 police headquarters in Pretoria, Good and Evil are=20 not relative properties; nor even are they=20 adjectives ascribed to law-abiding citizens on the=20 one hand and violent, gun-toting criminals on the=20 other. They are real forces, tangible and absolute,=20 that are currently waging a fierce battle for the=20 souls of South African teenagers. =20
Satan, says Jonker, has “no more than a few=20 thousand” adherents in South Africa, and he dwells=20 in strange places: Bloemfontein, Port Elizabeth,=20 Roodepoort; these are the satanic capitals of our=20 land. His chattels fill Jonker’s office: blood- and=20 urine-spattered coffins; human remains; chained and=20 chain-sawed bibles; inverted pentagraphs and=20 scarabs and triple sixes; the heavy-metal=20 collection of an ex-satanic priest (Kiss, Poison,=20 Iron Maiden); Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and other=20 New Age paraphernalia; black and red candles and a=20 cat’s heart with a stake through it; even one of=20 those floppy dolls you buy at the Cardies shop with=20 the slogan, “The Devil Made Me Do It!” written on=20 its chest. =20
Jonker is the first to admit that there is nothing=20 inherently evil about any of these. They are,=20 rather, objects that have been confiscated from the=20 many satanic covens he has busted; or have been=20 handed over by the Satanists he has helped to find=20 the Lord. =20
Against them, the colonel has little more than a=20 tiny gold crucifix in his lapel, and the raging=20 faith of a believer: “Look,” he says, “my training=20 is as a detective, murder and robbery, where you=20 want facts, where you want hard evidence. If you=20 had told me about ghosts and spirits a few years=20 ago, I’d have said, ‘I don’t believe in this junk!’=20 Now I know I was on the wrong path. After=20 everything I’ve seen, I know, now, that there are=20 two sides to this world, Good and Evil, and that=20 Satan is a reality.”=20
What changed his mind? Well, his own religious=20 rebirth in 1981 for a start. Then the sight of a=20 witch with stigmata along her arms in the shape of=20 pentagrams and triple sixes; and watching a boy=20 being exorcised and actually feeling the demons=20 kicking against the stomach of the boy. He has=20 received curses drenched in menstrual blood and=20 urine; he has survived threats and near-fatal car=20 collisions and financial ruin. =20
His passionate eyes will not avert their gaze when=20 faced with the devil. He is the sanitised Hollywood=20 version of a DC Comics superhero; the affable and=20 barrel-chested zap-’em good guy who takes on evil=20 and wins; a detective of the Third Dimension,=20 working in a world where morality is lost and=20 regained; where there seem to be shadows and shades=20 and murky hinterlands to consciousness but where,=20 in fact, things turn out to be glaringly simple:=20 there is Good and there is Evil. =20
We bound down the corridor of the Wachthuis, he=20 clutching a human skull and a locked bible that he=20 has removed from his display cabinet. We are going=20 downstairs for a photo. I note that his colleagues=20 greet him warmly, even while steering a wide berth=20 around him as they pass us, and I remember that he=20 was known in the Eastern Cape –where he comes=20 from, and where he first exposed Satanism in 1988,=20 when he was head of the Port Elizabeth Murder and=20 Robbery Unit — as “Donker Jonker”. We enter a=20 crowded lift. “Ag nee, Kolonel, haal daai dinge=20 uit!” says a man looking at the skull. Two women=20 flee prematurely at the next floor.=20
“People are always running away from me,” he says=20 as we alight. “Many policemen won’t even set a foot=20 in my office. You know, when I started the unit in=20 1992, I had 52 officers working with me. Now I’ve=20 got only nine. The rest couldn’t take it. The=20 Satanists would phone late at night and curse them,=20 and then their marriages would collapse or they’d=20 have financial problems. You have to have faith to=20 do this work.” He knows that the nine who have=20 remained are “the guys the Lord gave me to help me=20 further with the matter”.=20
He lectures about Satanism almost every night, and=20 fields at least 50 calls a day — from teenagers=20 who need help, or from anxious parents who have=20 found the tell-tale signs identified by Jonker=20 himself (black clothes, profane language, satanic=20 jewellery, Dungeons and Dragons addictions, Iron=20 Maiden fixations) and are phoning for help. =20
“Often I’ll rush over and meet these kids, and I’ll=20 go into the room and just see a rebellious child;=20 perhaps a child who has been abused by his father,=20 or comes from a broken family, and is just fighting=20 back. Just because the child likes black it doesn’t=20 make him a Satanist. My mother-in-law wears black=20 all the time to hide her fat-rolls, and she=20 cerainly isn’t a Satanist!”=20
Most of the kids who get involved in satanic=20 subcultures, he says, are often using Satanism to=20 rebel directly against the perceived hypocrisy of=20 Christianity, “where their parents act pious in=20 church but then drink and beat the hell out of them=20 at home”. He can help them, he says, “because I=20 have been there myself”: he too came from a broken=20 home with an abusive, alcoholic father; he too got=20 involved in underground cultures (he was a ducktail=20 and then a hippie and had a band called “The Broken=20 Link”). He reminds me of one of those tough-love=20 street-pastors who work the mean streets of cities=20 the world over. I could see him in Liverpool, in=20 the South Bronx, in those hardscrabble Port=20 Elizabeth suburbs he comes from. He could have=20 grown up in Athol Fugard’s mother’s boarding house.=20 In fact, I’d like to introduce them to each other:=20 Jonker’s passions fill precisely the mythical- realist lanscapes that made Fugard famous. =20
Only in a Fugard play could a character be so=20 single-minded, so simultaneously ribald and=20 righteous, and not in the slightest bit=20 sanctimonious. In the latest high-profile “satanic”=20 crime, Jonker was called back to Port Elizabeth to=20 give expert testimony on whether two young men were=20 under the influence of a “sex-demon”, as they=20 claimed, when they brutally raped a young woman. “I=20 knew they were lying,” says Jonker. “I mean, they=20 put condoms on when they raped her! I told the=20 judge, ‘Sir! Please! I do not know of a sex-demon=20 who uses condoms!” =20
The judge, on Jonker’s advice, dismissed “satanic=20 influence” as a mitigating factor. So here’s the=20 question: does Satan exist except as a figure for=20 evil or as the counterpoint for Judeo-Christian=20 religions? In the banned Nine Satanic Statements,=20 penned by the “Black Pope” of the Satanic Movement,=20 Anton le Vay, and held close to the breasts of all=20 those who profess to be Satanists, the final=20 statement declares mockingly: “Satan has been the=20 best friend the church has ever had, as he has kept=20 it in business all these years!” The reverse is=20 also true: the church has kept Satanism in business=20 too. They are poles of a never-ending dialectic=20 that has been going ever since the church was=20 invented. If our cosmology requires us to bounce,=20 perpetually, between good and evil, the promise of=20 heaven and the threat of hell, then these concepts=20 need physical homes and tangible personifications. =20
Certainly, there are people who claim to be=20 Satanists who ascribe to an amoral nihilism.=20 Perhaps, too, some of them possess supernatural=20 powers. Certainly, some of them corrupt susceptible=20 children and commit unspeakable crimes. They=20 dismember animals and drink blood and kill their=20 parents. =20
In 1994 alone, Jonker’s unit investigated 842=20 occult-related crimes — most of them “satanic=20 incidents” and grave desecrations, but also a=20 handful of murders and rapes. Jonker does provide a=20 service. What makes it perhaps anomalous in a=20 modern secular police force is that it is=20 evangelical. =20
But even if Satanism is a real issue in white South=20 Africa, it pales in comparison with the muti=20 murders or witch burnings in black communities.=20 Compare the handful of people who have been=20 murdered, in the past decade, by people claiming to=20 be Satanists, with the 200 “witches” burnt to death=20 in Northern Province in the past year alone. Jonker=20 professes interest in these issues, and says he=20 would gladly help out if asked, but his passion=20 clearly lies in the battle against Satan. =20
Jonker worries that, with the new constitution, his=20 unit will be taken away from him: “People are=20 saying to me, ‘you are going against the=20 constitution, which guarantees freedom of=20 religion’.” He reads the winds correctly. One=20 senior police source notes that Jonker’s outfit is=20 “a moral crusade” that doesn’t have a place in the=20 service: “We are not saying that Satanism doesn’t=20 exist. But it is the police’s function to=20 investigate crimes. We’d be better off leaving=20 deliverance to the church and the social problems=20 of economically disempowered whites to welfare=20
Perhaps, though, the Occult-related Crimes Unit –=20 and the perpetual diet of satanic misdemeanours fed=20 to us by the newspapers — play a psychic role in=20 white South African consciousness that should not=20 be too quickly discounted. Jonker insists that it=20 is just coincidence that Satan’s forces have become=20 manifest in this country at the exact time of=20 political transformation (he discovered his first=20 coven in 1988 and formed the unit in 1992). He has=20 a good record as a straight cop — he played an=20 exemplary role as an investigator in the Goniwe=20 case, stayed well away from the Security Branch,=20 and says he “saw the light” about how wrong=20 apartheid was when he was reborn in 1981. =20
Nonetheless, it is hard not to read his campaign=20 against Satan through the filter of a white South=20 Africa stuggling to make sense of its present=20 condition and find a place for itself in the=20 future. “South Africa,” he writes in the preface to=20 his book Satanism Exposed (published in 1992),=20 “stands on the threshhold of a new century with=20 numerous problems looming on the horizon. Aids,=20 drugs, over-population, political change, unrest,=20 poverty, unemployment, pollution and immorality are=20 the order of the day. Even the devil seems to be=20 making a revolutionary re-appearance …” =20
There’s something apocalyptic, something=20 millenarian about it all. White South Africa, at=20 the moment of its loss of power, the moment of the=20 millenium, is acting out a crisis of faith through=20 a passion play with a chorus line that is a Mstley=20 CrUe of black-clad neo-Gothic teen nihilists.=20 Enter, from right, a burly man with a little gold=20 cross in his lapel and righteousness in his gaze.=20 Enter, from left, the Goatman. “Oom Kobus” and the=20 “Satanis” battling in the yellow obscurity.=20