John le Carre is credited by some with originating one of the most powerful analytical tools since sod’s law: the explanation of human endeavour and its frustration in terms of the conspiracy and the cock-up theories. It is perhaps time it was brought to bear on South Africa’s most critical problem: crime.
Over recent months there have been grounds for uneasy suspicion that the high levels of lawlessness are not simply due to social deprivation and the criminality of its people, but that a hidden hand might be involved.
Disclosures relating to the involvement of a covert chemical weapons industry in the manufacture of street drugs raise questions, for example, as to whether there was a conspiracy to subvert the black population — to destroy their minds as part of some crazed plot to maintain white rule. The notion seems fantastic, but it would offer a possible explanation for otherwise improbable penetration of that particularly vicious drug, Mandrax, into South Africa, which is said to account for 90% of world consumption.
And if such a crazed plot was hatched under the old regime, is it not still being pursued by the “old guard” which maintains a considerable influence in the new South African Police Service (SAPS)?
Evidence before the truth commission has demonstrated how individual members of the security forces enriched themselves while working to destabilise the country in the 1980s and early 1990s. Do recent allegations of senior police involvement in organised crime reflect a conspiracy to render the country ungovernable — at least for the African National Congress — and profit personally by fomenting criminal activity ?
Then there is the cock-up theory. The extraordinary disclosures this week by the SAPS on police crime — that proportionally more police than members of the public were arrested for murder and attempted murder last year, and twice as many “lawmen” were held for driving under the influence — is a reminder that for decades the force was a safety net for the white unemployable.
It is a heritage which guarantees cock-ups. And evidence of cock-ups on a monumental scale was provided by similarly horrifying statistics which emerged last month on the register of firearms — showing, among other things, that the police have lost 18 600 guns, 1 103 of which have been relicensed to private individuals, and that 19 600 convicted criminals and 1 901 others declared unfit to carry a gun have firearms licences.
If the government holds to the cock-up theory, we would suggest a wholesale purge of the police is justified. At the very least it will improve the criminal profile of the force.
If the conspiracy theory holds sway, is it not time to get Judge Richard Goldstone back in harness?