Gangs provide worth when state fails

ANOTHER VOICE

- LORENZO DAVIDS Davids is the Executive Director of Urban Issues Consulting.

LAST week, I concluded my column on gangs by arguing that dignity plays a significant role in shaping the functioning of societies. The absence of reciprocal dignity is a significant contributor to the rise in crime and the growth of gangs. When a society, by design, destroys dignity and opportunity, that society destroys its future. When systems of governance, in particular in education, health, and economics, stratify their systems to give dignity and opportunity as rewards rather than inalienable rights, a breakdown of societal functionality becomes inevitable.

I have spent my childhood in Bellville South, Athlone and Mitchells Plain. In each of these communities, I saw close friendships drift into gangs. I have been mugged three times over my lifetime. Once in Hanover Park on a Friday night, once on my way to take a train at Mitchells Plain station, and once while I was exiting a train at Nyanga station to take a bus to Mitchells Plain. In each of those muggings, the people who mugged me were about my age. In one case, I was still in school; in the other two, I was at university.

I cannot describe the incredible fear that gripped me during each mugging. I have often wondered why I did not resist more aggressively. My reflections have led me to this conclusion: I could not bring myself to physically assault another person for non-life-threatening violence. To do so would perpetuate a cycle in which even minor harm would reinforce reciprocal violence.