I had to take my wife to the GEPF offices in Salmon Grove Chambers in Anton Lembede Street. I parked in front of the building and waited for my wife. While I sat in my car, I watched with interest the parade of humanity going up and down the pavement. Every now and then a scavenger would come along and rummage in the bin for scraps of food, bottles and cans. Surprisingly, no one was littering. I also noticed that nearly everyone was walking around with a cell phone in his/her hand. Everybody felt safe as groups of Metro police officers were doing their morning rounds.
But as the morning wore on, the foot patrol dwindled and finally disappeared altogether. Then I noticed a strange thing happening to my car. The lights on the dashboard were flickering. I went outside to check the headlamps. They were also flicking. I went back inside and tried to lock the door. It wouldn't. I tried to start the car. But it also wouldn't. I was puzzled. How could the battery go flat?
Then suddenly two men appeared, one on the driver's side and the other on the passenger side. The guy on the driver's side opened the door and wanted my cell phone. The other guy showed me a knife and said, 'Cell phone or the knife!' While I looked petrified, the guy on the driver's side lunged forward and grabbed my cellphone. In the blink of an eye they mingled with the crowd and were gone. I was distraught. No one came to help. I had to get a tow truck to boost my battery.
Then three weeks later we had to go back to the GEPF offices. This time we went early. Though I was worried, I reassured myself that it would not happen again. In any case, I was more careful. I hid the new phone and locked the doors. But I had to keep the windows open a little, as it was a blistering hot day.
Again, when the police disappeared, the lights began to flicker, and three men appeared next to my car. They tried to open the door, but fortunately it would not. The thief on my side pushed his hand through the narrow window opening and tried to grab the ignition key. But I managed to stop him, and they vanished as quickly as they had appeared. I was traumatised. How could it happen again? Have I become an easy target for criminals in my old age, robbed at an ATM and robbed of a cell phone twice?
Again my car wouldn't start. Fortunately, some kind construction workers nearby helped me to boost the car.
Strangely, a Metro police officer appeared while we were trying to boost the car. Yet he was nowhere to be seen when the thieves were trying to mug me. Unsympathetic to my plight, he gave me a ticket for not displaying my licence! He was merely doing his duty. It seems like when the police are away, the thieves come out to play.
As evil as apartheid was, we could still go to town without any fear of being mugged and robbed. What's the use of democracy if I cannot walk freely in the town I once loved to go to every week?
Some will counter that you can also get mugged in London. But it's nowhere near as serious as it is in our country. Democracy has failed miserably here. I'd rather be in hell than in a democracy overrun by thieves, criminals and the corrupt elite. | T MARKANDAN, Kloof