I used to read with disgust about the horrendous things Mexican cartel bosses do to enemies they capture.
I won’t go into details because – if you don’t have a strong stomach – it’s the kind of stuff that will keep you awake for fear of the nightmares that will haunt you.
It’s very difficult for me to fathom that human beings are capable of such evil. And all because of greed; to make more money from controlling a bigger evil – the drug trade.
I certainly didn’t think that we would see a similar sort of inhumanity right here on a doorstep.
I’m talking about the body that was found lying in the street in Mitchells Plain last week.
A young man had been butchered, his head severed and placed in a bag on top of his torso. It’s exactly the sort of message a Mexican cartel would send to their rivals.
It is beyond brutal. Beyond sickening. What sort of person is able to cut off the head of another human being, with the intent of sowing fear and panic into a community?
More importantly, what will this lead to? Because we have come to understand the reprisal and revenge mindsets of our gangsters. None of them will accept being wysed.
I fear that this act was the beginning of something unlike any we have seen before.
A level of casual evil that will up the ante of monstrosity, desensitising and traumatising our kids and communities even further.
I won’t tell you how far it went in Mexico because I don’t want to give anyone ideas, but trust me, this is not a path we want to go down.
We have experienced the consequences of our inaction with other societal challenges before. We need to find a way of nipping this in the bud without delay.
Needless to say, the SAPS must make speedy arrests and the justice system needs to act decisively.
But individually, we need to tackle this scourge with the urgency it requires.
As always, someone’s child, brother, husband, boyfriend, neighbour committed this horrible crime and they are opting to remain quiet about it.
You are protecting the person at the expense of our collective sense of humanity.
And if this spirals out of control the way it did in Mexico, then none of us will have peace of mind. Including you!