LOOSE CANNON: Robert Kirby Despite the seasonal rush, it arrived just in time to top-up their Christmas hampers. From humble purse-snatcher, through rapist, murderer, fraudster and paedophile, to international car-hijack operative, the members of the South African criminal community are fair yowling with yuletide gratitude as they welcome yet another priceless gift brought them by the three wise men of South African law enforcement: Sydney Mufamadi, George Fivaz and foamy old Meyer Kahn.
As they’re known in affectionate criminal jargon, Muffy, Gruffy and Clutchbottle last week once again shouldered their way into the headlines, loudly asserting that after several months of deliberation they’d managed to think up yet another a brand new method of obliterating crime.
Yet another way in which to “interface optimal victim support with effective crime management components”. In effect, to let every charge office become a place where mind will be encouraged to command matter.
This latest philosophical truncheon is a bit difficult to describe. Apparently it is designed to replace Muffy’s earlier Nine Point Strategy to fight the seven main areas of criminal activity, while at the same time revising Gruffy’s 13 Point Masterplan to focus on emphatic police management service intelligence deliveries and modifying Clutchbottle’s Five Level Restructuralisation Functionality Management Modules without doing away with logistical operational needs.
You think I’m kidding, don’t you? You think I’m making all this up? You think that people like Gruffy, Muffy and Clutchbottle are responsible public officers, perfectly capable of taking their jobs seriously. Such mettle as shapes these three would never produce so humid a flow of utter bullshit.
Listen to this, then. What follows is an actual quote from Gruffy’s explanation of the new police master plan. Apparently Gruffy and his fellow sages have decided it’s time to split wide the present “crime intelligence and detective functions” mainly because Clutchbottle says they should no longer fall under the “detective service division”.
With a brisk gendarme’s wink, Gruffy elaborated: “[so as to] further enhance and focus our capacity to manage crime intelligence in support of the prevention and investigation of crime”.
Tough, uncompromising officer-speak, I think you’ll have to agree. And about time too. Crimebusting’s “Terrible Trinity” are clearly not resting on their laurels. Not satisfied with having already ruthlessly battered down crime levels – only 11 000 murders in Gauteng in the first six months of the year; violent rape reduced to only one every 32 seconds – this three-part fugue of constabular virtuosity has gone even further.
Having thoroughly fucked up the criminal community, Muffy, Gruffy and Clutchbottle are now directing their attentions inwards. They now intend thoroughly fucking up the police as well. Their latest policy announcement shows that they’ve decided it’s simply no good managing the cops by means of long-established and proven methods. All that obsolete military style professionalism and efficiency. Looking at the old system anyone would think criminals were actual enemies of the police.
Instead it’s going to be a case of away with the last of apartheid’s sticky residuum, away with all the discipline and fighting spirit. As bravely they stride off into the criminal twilight, policepersons will now have to remember and try to live up to Gruffy’s reveries.
Never one to shun any opportunity to leap up in public and talk absolute drivel, last week Gruffy leapt up and announced: “It is important to note that this process of restructuring is an attempt to create a fair and a balanced distribution of our operational resources on all levels of policing in the best interest of the country of South Africa and its inhabitants.”
And there you were, thinking bureaucracy had blunted its dreadful lance. And no, that’s not the subsonic roar of an approaching renaissance you hear. It’s the sound of the South African criminal element hosing themselves with fright.
Up until this moment, Muffy had been keeping his own counsel. Suddenly the mood of renewal proved too much for him. With a rumble of escaping probity he scrambled to his feet to declare his own tuneful exegesis: “The restructuring process allows those members of the management responsible for fighting crime and implementing transformation policies to pay effective attention to their respective areas of focus. The move takes the momentum of transforming the South African Police Service through affirmative action and more rational institutional design”.
Reading that don’t be surprised if you find yourself thinking twice about your recent emigration inquiries. There’s still hope. Sit back and trust a bit.
But I wouldn’t sell the Rottweilers or tear down the razor-wire. Not just yet.