It was a while back now. And sometimes when I think about that night I feel ashamed about what I didn't feel then. South Africa has a way of making people hard but still leaving a very twisted sense of humor in tact. Yet when I look around me today I somehow know things will work out. I know we have seen some hard times over here, and we have been at each other over just about everything, I still love this country, it's my home, its where I feel safe even when it feels like its going to hell every other week.
So back to that night, I was just entering Sunny Side, walker street, heading towards the IEC building to a small shopping center called Barcleys Square where my dad owned a pub and a coffee shop. About 2 km away something strange catches my eye and 2 men start running, not even a second passes and a shot is fired, i almost pull the steering wheel as I am no longer even looking at the road, I see one man jump a wall and another run up the street. It's only now that I realize that these two men are fleeing, regardless of what they might have done, a few seconds later I witness the South African police murder a man and the last thing he hears is a so called warning shot.
As I look around the internet these days I find this as just about the standard way police are looking all around the world. Once again kind of funny right? Look I get I am suppose to know I live in a dangerous place, I get that police are there to keep people safe, I get that just like with every single story on this planet everything has more than one side. But why do I keep feeling like I'm not safe around people in uniform, why do I feel like they threaten and intimidate. Why are they looking more and more like the military every day?
This video kind of pisses me off, and again, I know, more than one side. Yet when they look like this and can shoot when ever the fuck they want, where is the line between my safety and my death, its right there in the hands of a trained enforcer. Trained to control me and you.
I wonder if these police men know if you take the police part away they are just one of us again.
So back to that night, I was just entering Sunny Side, walker street, heading towards the IEC building to a small shopping center called Barcleys Square where my dad owned a pub and a coffee shop. About 2 km away something strange catches my eye and 2 men start running, not even a second passes and a shot is fired, i almost pull the steering wheel as I am no longer even looking at the road, I see one man jump a wall and another run up the street. It's only now that I realize that these two men are fleeing, regardless of what they might have done, a few seconds later I witness the South African police murder a man and the last thing he hears is a so called warning shot.
This video kind of pisses me off, and again, I know, more than one side. Yet when they look like this and can shoot when ever the fuck they want, where is the line between my safety and my death, its right there in the hands of a trained enforcer. Trained to control me and you.
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