Crime in this country is related to so many different aspects of South African society, that I think it is futile to blame one person and hold him accountable.

All people, all South Africans, are to blame for the way our world has become.

It is not only misappropriated funds that should have been bolstering law enforcement salaries, or indecent expenses that should have been securing universities or even changing the names of little towns and streets, resulting in millions of taxes being shunted into a cosmetic achievement: It is the turning a blind eye to a friend taking a little more than belongs to him, or admiring another for slipping one over the tax man, it is in the lack of a community that supports the poor and elderly, or the young and hungry.

Wouldn’t it be nice to say that one man held all our lives in the palm of his hand? To say that twelve ministers were really at the heart of our problems. It would be nice to lay all the blame for today’s situation on a government that has followed the leaders of our past. It would be wonderful to hold them accountable for our future. But we can’t. It is impossible for one government to lead a country out a bleakness it has created, and holds onto with both hands.
You argue that not every one is corrupt, that not every one shuns this responsibility, and you would be right. There are exceptions to every generalisation. But it is not the exceptions that are the problem, or even the solution. The problem is the general public.

We have engendered a righteous wrong, and in suffering the consequences, search for some one else to carry the blame.

The only person to blame for crime, small and big, fatal and merely life-altering is the person that is reading this article, the person that wrote it, the person that can’t read, and the person next to you.

We are not sheep, blindly led along. We have always had our say, have always stood up for what we believed in. Perhaps, instead of removing our problematic figure heads, we should practice what we preach, and grow them into the positions. I believe the best starting point for reformation of corrupt personalities would be volunteer work in Baragwanath’s Hospital. Helping out Hillbrow’s horrifically understaffed admin desks. Spending a day standing in the middle of the road trying to sell a trinket so that you can get back home that night – with nowhere to relieve themselves, people shouting abuse, cars swerving to hit them, the sun beating down, and the rain drowning their clothes. Only when they understand these problems, can they maybe find a solution.

As a growing nation, with growing problems, I think the last thing we should be doing is considering adding two more bodies to the unemployment equation.

But in no way can we conscionably say that it is their fault we are sitting with such high statistics of crime. All of us are to blame, or no one is. Reality and democracy have decreed it so.

In plainer language, if you keep on doing what you’re doing, you will get what you’ve got. Removing public figureheads didn’t change anything in the past, and it isn’t going to be the miracle we are all hoping for this time round.