SOCIAL TURMOIL THREATENING EMASWATI

Sir,
 
Looking at the spate of murders doing the rounds in Eswatini, one cannot help but wonder when these crimes will come to a halt. Crime in our major towns and townships seems to be rising daily. In all honesty, man has always been known to mobilise brutal force when dealing with issues that affect them. What has been happening in our country is nothing short of a crippled society suffering from a lack of jobs and easy access to weapons and other social determinants like health and disease. Where people suffer from a lack of jobs they more often than not resort to illegal means to make a living as even the rich support this trade; the poor suffer even further as for them drug usage is a means to deal with stress, anxiety and anger.

Suffering

Many are suffering from a society that looks down upon itself and only eager to eat at available resources without considering the welfare of the other. When law enforcement institutions threaten to tighten the noose, it is either jail time or death. What is happening is that there are a few people trying to regenerate our crumbling society – to revive youth intelligence and uphold social upliftment programmes – but the sad thing is that government is looking on from a fair distance.

Affected

Drug usage has always affected the youth and even adults who quit suffer long-term effects like lowered brain function, lung and kidney disease, cancer and the sorts. The problem here is that the issue is being tackled by angry citizens, who are watching their children being crippled by drugs and alcohol. One sad aspect is that wrongdoers are not being apprehended but are manhandled mob-style, which in itself is a crime but still government looks on as if this will crumble. Where these individuals should have been spotted and handed over to the police, they are brutally beaten and killed.

This is a social turmoil that now threatens law abiding emaSwati. What is most appalling is that certain places in certain hoods or townships are known to be given the blind eye by authorities as they are either killed or given certain ‘benefits’ by criminal elements. The crime fighting is then left to the community, who unfortunately face these criminals head-on where bloodshed ensues. Since it will always be the community against these thugs, mob justice is borne and from there anything that goes to ‘sorting’ the mess is all out carnage. Strength in numbers may not always be a good thing if those members lean against the wrong wall for a cause they need peace and sanity to win. We do not need such murders.

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