Men are not trash, they are killers

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Two weeks ago, we were served, live on prime-time television, an orgy of vandalism and violence by male soccer fans at Moses Mabhida Stadium. A particularly disturbing clip of a security guard becoming the focus of a rain of chairs, punches and kicks went viral.

Initial reports were that the security guard who was brutally turned into a football was female. This was corrected once it was confirmed the victim was a male security guard - Sabela Maziba. In this country, these kinds of atrocities happen with monotonous regularity. It is as if there is a secret factory deep in the belly of the land that relentlessly manufactures killer men and deploys them strategically across the land. As these spine-chilling scenes were spilling out of the television into my living room, I did what any South African do-gooder would do: escape into the fantasy world of social media. There, I broadcast my puzzlement as to how and why, in the course of apparently noble protests and struggles in pursuit of the public good, women end up being disrespected, abused, assaulted and even killed by men. Does it occur that many protests whose grievances have nothing to do with women per se, end up victimising women?

To amplify my point, I posted two pictures; one of 32-year-old Mabiza as he was being beaten to a pulp at Moses Mabhida, and an earlier one of 52-year-old Nkateko Olivia Makete being kicked by ANC branch leader Thabang Setona at a protest outside Luthuli House.

Once the news filtered through that the security guard - Mabiza - was male and not female, some breathed a cynical sigh of relief.

In typical SA style, one could almost hear shebeen patrons drunkenly muttering, with a measure of glee that, “at least the victim was not a woman’’. As if the violence we mete out against men comes from a different, higher, gentler and kinder source than our usual violence against women.

As if violence against men is not a dimension of the same old violence we have honed and sharpened to a state where it lies ready for random and repeated deployment against women and children. Time after time, individual men and groups of men participate effortlessly, ruthlessly, in violence against women. From the frequently capital outlay of terror, harm and death reserved mainly for women, the rest of menfolk derive some perverted social capital that accrues to all men - willy-nilly.

Many have hailed Judge Peet Johnson’s guilty verdict of Sandile Mantsoe for the murder of Karabo Mokoena, for burning her corpse and dropping it at a rubbish dump.

The subsequent sentence effectively means Mantsoe would be almost 60 when he walks out of prison - if they keep him in. Sadly, young Karabo Mokoena will never come out of death.

Unlike Oscar Pistorius, who gave almost his entire testimony in sobs and moans, perhaps intended to wrench the most hardened,Mantsoe stoically maintained the demeanour of innocence. Wasn’t he supposed to be a highly successful forex trader living the life of bling?

After the story of Karabo’s murder broke, didn’t his pastor - Lehlohonolo Malopa - describe Mantsoe as an evangelist who preached in trains and bus stops?

Didn’t we hear his baby mama, Nonhlanhla Dlamini, paint a saintly picture of him? Were his pastor and baby mama victims of his economic and emotional blackmail?

Judge Johnson was probably closer to the truth when he called Mantsoe a “devil in disguise”, I heard someone say. Judge Johnson has tried to do that. But has he succeeded? Can he succeed? I say no. When it comes to violence against women, the South African judiciary and criminal justice system is not up against some individual psychopaths who maim and kill, from time to time.

They are up against an ever- growing legion of killers.

I dare say that they are up against South African society itself. For it is this society that raises, encourages, loves and protects the killers. They say Sandile Mantsoe is gone to rot in jail. I say no, Moantsoe is not gone. He is here among us.

In our leafy suburbs, townships and platteland dorpies alike, there are a million Sandile Mantsoes incubating, perfecting their skills, awaiting an opportunity to pounce.

These men are not merely tolerated, they are adored by their communities. As well as the protection of the community, they enjoy the sometimes inadvertent support of those who use academic theories, social labels, and legalistic arguments in an attempt to make sense of their ghastly deeds.

They enjoy support from those who encourage society to give the killers several dozen second chances. They find solace among those who derive all manner of benefit, however warped, from their ghastly deeds. There is a national (some would say global) and growing brotherhood of killers.

While the conviction and jailing of Sandile makes sense in relation to his individual misdemeanour, and brings some sense of justice and hopefully some closure to the Mokoena family, it does not begin to address our national problem.

Men are engaged in a war not merely of humiliation and exploitation of women, but in a war of extermination of women.

You won’t believe me, perhaps you will believe the dead. Ask Karabo Mokoena. Ask Zolile Khumalo, allegedly shot by her boyfriend. Ask Anene Booysen, raped and killed by homeboy Johannes Kana. Ask Reeva Steenkamp, killed by boyfriend Oscar Pistorius. Ask Rachel Tshabalala, killed by her boyfriend and ANCYL leader Patrick Wisani. Ask Noluvo Swelindawo, killed by a group of men for being a lesbian. Ask Noxolo Xakeka, killed for being a lesbian. Ask Eudy Simelane. Ask Noxolo Nogwaza.

There is not enough space in a newspaper article to list all the women killed in South Africa over the past few years. Not to mention the raped and the maimed.

The killing of women has reached such a level we can no longer see it as a crime of the individual killer. We can no longer be content with merely describing the phenomenon a consequence of patriarchy and misogyny. This is a societal crime against humanity and against the lives of women.

We, not only Sandile Mantsoe, are guilty. It is national crime for which all South African men should be put on trial.

I urge South African society to stop disrespecting and mislabelling men through such campaigns as #MenAreTrash. Please. South African men are not trash - they are killers.

* Maluleke is a professor at the University of Pretoria. He writes in his personal capacity. Follow him on Twitter @ProfTinyiko

The Sunday Independent