It's easy to blame apartheid for rampant crime. It's a lot harder to understand why — or how to fix it
Shortly after my arrival in Italy in 1992, I went out for dinner with my allievi ricercatori — my research assistants.
In months ahead, they would become my friends. At that point, they were still my students. They were also my teachers, since I was a stranger in their land and English was not their first or even second language.
The first course arrived, homemade pasta, tagliatelle al pesto. And I picked up my knife and fork and began slicing the ribbon noodles into little bits... and a hush fell upon the table.
(Do you know that feeling? When you've opened your mouth wide and firmly inserted both feet?) I looked up to see the group of four looking at me with horror.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"What are you doing?" Mario wanted to know.
"I'm cutting my pasta."
"You can't do that!"
Why not?
An excited jabber of Italian followed. Gigi turned to me. "It's not allowed!"
Well, how am I supposed to eat my pasta then?
"Like this," said Paolo, and dexterously twirled his fork creating a small ball of noodles.
"But what's wrong with the way I'm doing it?" I said, using my fork like a shovel to pick up the sliced bits.
"The Pope has written a law that says you cannot do this," Mario replied.
Why?
They did not know. "It's just something that you do not do. We learn this when we are children," was the reply.
"Listen guys, I have no problem following a convention if I understand why it is done, but you can't expect me to just blindly refuse to cut my pasta because that was something you were taught as kids?"
It was on the following day over a mid-morning espresso that Paola — who had not been present at the dinner offered an explanation.
"If you eat pasta Italian style, it picks up the sauce with the noodles. If you cut the pasta, the sauce falls off."
I have not sliced my pasta since.
In the old days, the white South African Police had an easier life.
Black crime was not a problem because they simply rounded up every black person in sight. If you were a black person in a white area, you had to be either a servant or a criminal.
White crime was controlled in the usual first-world style trained detectives and undercover agents quickly dealt with most investigations.
Now a free South Africa and a Bill of Rights is with us, and black criminals have to be treated in exactly the same way as white criminals. This means trained detectives and undercover agents have to formulate their cases based on the rule of law.
Except the majority of trained detectives and undercover agents — thanks to apartheid — are white. And they are now required to perform their craft in black communities.
But they do not speak the language. They do not understand the conventions. They look different. They are suddenly strangers in their land.
This is truly mission impossible. Colombo, Kojak or Sherlock Holmes himself could not be expected to carry out an investigation in Soweto working through interpreters.
The question right now is not whether Police Commissioner George Fivaz is doing a good enough job. The speed with which white right-wing bombers were apprehended is proof that many white detectives can and do work in the national interest.
Until black South Africa produces a large enough crop of trained detectives and undercover agents, the townships are a safe haven for crime.