So, former Fidentia robber Arthur Brown has decided to pull a Schabir on all of us and is applying to be further upgraded from the already comparatively more comfortable Pollsmoor Prison hospital to the luxury of a private clinic. Just because he’s depressed? Good god. I have always just assumed that every inmate is freaking depressed. For the record, I personally think he should be getting well-acquainted with his three-legged cellmate named Godonga.
We should never have allowed Schabir outside his cell.
Let me put my cards on the table from the onset. In the paradoxical potjiekos of political stances inside my head, my views on how we should be dealing with criminals stick out like a pacifist non-boxer without a knife at an ANC conference. I’ve always argued that my views are neither leftist, liberal, centrist nor rightist. I’m a little bit of all of the above. Yes, a fence-sitter.
Insofar as affirmative action is concerned, I’m ultra-leftist. A good job that pays for bucket-loads of beer every day and the kids’ maducations has a way of unearthing passionate, positive feelings about the employment equity policies that make it all possible. Where gay marriages are concerned I’m as liberal as Nadine Gordimer when she’s not busy trying to censor Kevin. I think gay people are entitled to be as miserable as the rest of the population — especially when they come to the realisation that marriage is as irreversible as the whirlpool created inside a toilet after flushing. Only the stubborn turds can float to the surface.
But when it comes to crime, I make Susan Shoot-em-all whatshername seem about as liberal as Bill Clinton is about extramarital fellatio. Where crime is concerned I believe that our ministry of Correctional Services should have the following priorities;
1. Punishing convicted offenders. (Make me president and my first act in office is rushing through a Bill that makes castration for all convicted rapists not only constitutional but mandatory. Against minor or adult survivors and non-survivors alike. Blunt kitchen knives allowed.)
2. Removal of menaces from society.
3. Deterring would-be-offenders from even thinking about it.
If you’re reading this and thinking, ‘But what about rehabilitation?’, take a trip to the nearest hospital, dip your finger in the blood of crime victims and write ‘Dof’ on your forehead. People who believe in the rehabilitation of criminals are the same people who would put Mike Tyson back into the ring with Holyfield (after years of counselling of course) and be all surprised when Holyfield leaves the ring without his left eyeball — by now an uncomfortable resident of Tyson’s gut. Punishment is the means to the rehabilitation end, I say. If the sound of your teeth clanking together from Godonga’s left hooks doesn’t rehabilitate you, then what would encouraging words and lots of hugs achieve?
And let’s get this one out of the way. I kind of get the technical distinction between Arthur Brown’s ‘awaiting trial’ status versus Schabir’s ‘convicted fraudster even after the exhaustion of all appeals’ badge of honour. And I’ll be the first one to acknowledge that the NPA prosecuted Schabir more vigorously for his crimes than they would have a psychopathic paedophile found with twenty child corpses in his freezer. Hell, I’ll even grant you that there is more than a sulphuric stench of a political conspiracy around the circumstances of Schabir’s whole case — if it pleases you.
But in the immortal words of Siyabonga Ntshingila: when asked about Orlando Pirates’s perennial underachieving ways, ‘I don’t give a [rude name for coital engagement]‘. When the courts say you’re a criminal, it’s time for you to pay. There’s another reason why I’m not a multi-millionaire if you ignore the fact that I am whatever is the opposite of a smart, self-starting, industrious and visionary entrepreneur. That reason is that I fear jail so much I would never take the myriad shortcuts available to making that first R30 million. Yes, fear.
Schabir Shaik spending five months in a hospital ward with only the protrusion of his gluteus maximus muscles through those ridiculous hospital gowns as his only punishment pisses me off. It offends me and makes a mockery of the retribution aspect of the mandate that I think Ngconde Balfour should have in his remaining eight months in office. God help us all if Ngconde is still around post 2009 elections. By the way, a birdie has whispered in my ear that this post is going to Tony ‘Beerful Parole Weekend’ Yengeni after 2009. Now wouldn’t that be something.
Not only that, it sets a dangerous precedent. What kind of retarded nonsense is this that makes it possible for a convicted criminal to spend months in prison because of a little hypertension? Hello! I do believe that this is the very gist of locking them up? I do believe that every convicted criminal since the beginning of time has had elevated blood pressure at the mere realisation that stepping up to the Esplanade’s Roma Revolving Restaurant for a succulent sirloin was no longer an option.
As a matter of fact, I demand that from now every convicted prisoner’s blood pressure is monitored pre-incarceration and post-incarceration. I further demand that every prisoner whose blood pressure does not elevate by at least 20% be placed on a special programme to remedy this undesirable situation. We might even christen the programme the ‘Accelerated Rehabilitation Plan’ (with associated sexy-sounding ARP acronym) to pacify the pinko-liberal, African print headscarf-wearing parliamentary committee types. Whatever. I don’t care. As long as we raise everybody’s freaking blood pressure in there.
What’s this nonsense? Why are we standing idly by while the further pussification of our nation continues unabated? What’s next? What if another prisoner’s blood pressure goes up because he hasn’t had a spliff in a while? Surely he has every right to get some state-funded cannabis to lower his blood pressure if Schabir is allowed to get drips because the idea of a jail cell terrifies him to the extent where he forgets to take breaths, raising his BP through the roof?
This brings me to Arthur Brown. God help us all if the guy’s innocent. And by ‘us’ I mean you, me and every other South African identity document holder — real or bogus. After all, you and I are holding him in custody. The NPA is merely acting on our behalf. But if he’s guilty, then what’s this nonsense about him wanting to go to a private clinic because his bipolar is acting up? Let him suck it up like a man. No, by ‘it’ I don’t mean the meaty enema dished out by the roving lower alimentary canal tourists who are residents of all our correctional facilities. I just mean, he must suck up his punishment. Depressed? Well, I sincerely hope that’s the effect we were going for when we locked him up.
I’m a believer in nipping potential problems in the bud. My buddy Maswazi taught me the wisdom of stopping problems before they escalate, eight years ago. Playing pussy-footsy with common incarceration-related maladies such as elevated blood pressure and sodomy-inspired loss of marbles is just opening the door for many future headaches. Should a certain trial not go well for a certain high-profile member of the Pussy Nation, he’s going to end up in hospital for five years due to high blood pressure and stress-related dementia.
And he’s going to cite aggravated sperm retention as the cause. And what will we say then?
Sing it.
We are part of the Pussy Nation
Come on
We are part of the Pussy Nation
[Sung to the tune of Janet Jackson’s ‘Rhythm Nation’]