Three weeks ago Mandla Tsotetsi was beaten within an inch of his life by members of the Qalabusha community in Daveyton on the East Rand.
They allegedly found him stealing furniture from someone’s home.
They dragged him to his mother, Martha, about a kilometre from the home.
“We want to kill you in front of your mother,” the raging mob charged as Martha watched her son desperately clinging to life.
Devastated as she was by the events of that day, she was hardly surprised.
Mandla is a nyaope addict who steals for a living.
It was only a matter of time before he, like many who commit such crimes, would be subjected to mob justice, which sets the rules of engagement in this community.
Mandla’s assault was the second of its kind that week.
Just three days before, two men were stoned to death after they were caught allegedly breaking into a shack.
Mob justice is prevalent in SA townships – it is a crime often celebrated by many who believe ours is a country where the rule of law has failed to protect or deliver justice for victims of crime.
Its roots go back to the dark days before our democracy when those deemed to have sold out the liberation Struggle were brutalised and burnt to death in the most horrific way.
Police statistics show that despite condemnation by authorities, such attacks are continuing.
In the 2019/20 financial year, at least 3,888 people were attacked in mob justice incidents in SA, with 1,202 of them killed.
In the last financial year, mob justice incidents climbed every quarter and crime statistics released on Friday show that at least 2,109 people were attacked and 903 of them killed.
Worth noting in the latest statistics is that apart from the three months between April and June last year, most of which SA was under a hard lockdown, mob justice attacks climbed dramatically every quarter until March.
Mob justice is a crime and must be condemned.
It has no place in our constitutional democracy and its perpetrators must be criminally prosecuted.
However, these incidents underpin a much deeper problem: the breakdown of trust in the police by the communities they are meant to serve.
This breakdown of trust is to a great extent justified.
Despite what police bosses would have us believe, the service we get from police stations is frequently appalling.
When such a breakdown occurs, communities adapt and find ways to govern themselves outside of existing state mechanisms.
This is why the practice of mob justice finds resonance, even with people who are otherwise law-abiding citizens.
Only it comes with an even bigger danger.
You see, the formulation of communal rules which operate parallel to and in contradiction with our country’s laws opens the floodgates of anarchy.
This is because once you are prepared to cross the line to illegality, the reasons for doing so thereafter become fluid.
People who exercise the power of violence to bring about this sort of “justice” in a community are often likely to use it for personal gain.
Eventually rules get made up as we go along, often by the loudest voices for the benefit of the most violent among us. This is why extortion rings are becoming more prevalent in our communities.
Suddenly, what started off as a so-called justified practice to punish criminals evolves into a system of oppression that terrorises the very community it once claimed to protect.
Our government must, without a doubt, work harder to restore public trust in the police and our criminal justice system.
While there are many dedicated police officers who put their lives on the line to serve and protect us, there are also too many who do not deserve the honour of the badge.
Their acts of corruption, incompetence and dereliction of duty undermine the entire system.
We certainly must demand better.
We must apply the necessary pressure, within the law, to compel the government to exercise its constitutional obligation to protect us.
Importantly, we must never be fooled into believing that there can be systemic justice from practices rooted in violence and lawlessness.
• Makunga is Sowetan editor
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