It may be a new year, but we continue to deal with old, ongoing and very familiar problems.
Whether deliberately or accidentally, our infrastructure is coming under attack.
There was the fire at Parliament that pretty much destroyed the National Assembly and Old Assembly buildings and a lot of the heritage housed inside.
It’s the second blow to our historical treasures in under nine months, after the Rhodes Memorial fire that gutted the library at the UCT.
Another disaster was averted last week, after a fire destroyed one of the doors leading into the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development in Queen Victoria Street.
While the suspect in the parliament fire is due in court again tomorrow, no arrests have been made in the second fire, which police suspect was also arson.
Meanwhile, a man with a hammer was also arrested, after he smashed windows of the Constitutional Court building in Johannesburg last week.
Did you also just whisper to yourself: “What the hell is going on?”
While those may very well involve attempts to destabilise the government, there has also been damage caused that is very much in our control to prevent as ordinary citizens.
One of the new high-tech Metrorail trains was damaged when youngsters stoned it while at Steenberg Station last week.
The driver’s cabin window was destroyed and had to be replaced.
A few days later, Metrorail’s security, with the help of community members, caught several men in the act of digging up train cables in Goodwood.
Four of them were arrested and are due in court soon.
Again, what the hell is going on?
We complain bitterly about the lack of services to our communities, but then we allow these sorts of things to happen right under our noses.
People in the community know those youngsters who stoned that train at Steenberg and are keeping quiet about it.
The guys digging up the cables are also known, so are the scrap dealers who buy from them.
There are numerous ways to report them, even anonymously, and be a patriotic, responsible citizen.
But again they are being protected by the very people who need these services the most.
It is one of the most bizarre things to me.
Because of the nature of these crimes, they can only really be solved with the community’s help.
The residents of Goodwood are to be commended for having jumped in and helped with the arrests.
Good people cannot continue to sit by quietly, while our infrastructure is being destroyed.
It is as if there is a pattern here and if I didn’t know any better, I would say that there is an orchestrated campaign of crimes against the state going on.
Nevertheless, in my opinion, they should all be charged with treason anyway.
There seems to be no end to the vandalism and destruction, and to the costs of the repairs that we have to bear, so a serious charge will send a very strong message.
It may be the only recourse we have left to put an end to it once and for all.