The Big Read: How crime murders our hope



In a long black dress adorned with beautiful African beads, the mother of the graduate walked slowly towards the graduation stage. Belina Mere took her place on the marked site where her son was to have stood, listening to the citation detailing the intricacies of his medical microbiology and virology research.Typically, at the end of an impressive citation that few in the audience would have understood, the supervisor would conclude with the magic words that everybody could grasp: "Mr Chancellor, I request you to award the degree doctor of philosophy on the candidate presented to you." The audience would then cheer enthusiastically in recognition of the fact that four to six years or more of hard, intensive research had finally delivered the degree. From now onwards, and for the rest of his life, he would be Dr Mathengtheng.Except he was not there.The mother stood upright, staring into the distance, a powerful symbol of dignity and grace in the face of unimaginable grief. Mrs Mere remained that way until the voice of a supervisor started to quiver as emotion carried the words hailing the work of a student she, too, had clearly loved.The mother lifted her hands to her eyes through the reading, dabbing at tears that were now running freely.By the time she reached the chancellor's chair - the tall man now standing with thousands in the crowd - the mother could hold back no more and her body shook with emotion.Mrs Mere then walked to the registrar to receive the sash, after which she moved unsteadily down the ramp to be handed the PhD certificate at a table.There was not a dry eye in the large hall and nobody sat until the mother had found her seat.At the same ceremony, a father had hoped to graduate on the same day as his daughter with the same master's of law degree, but she died before this could happen.A husband looked distraught as he walked across the stage, collecting the degree for his deceased wife.It was the saddest graduation I had ever attended.Lehlohonolo Mathengtheng was not simply any student - he was one of the smartest young scientists at a South African university. Matheng, as his friends called him, won national and international awards for his science, including an award from the Medical University of Vienna in Austria.He was named as one of the top 40 postgraduate students in South Africa and regularly won "best student" awards throughout his university career. But he was not simply a brilliant young scientist; he was a much-loved human being, spirited in everything he did and enthusiastic in his embrace of fellow students.And then he died, murdered in his flat, lost forever to the scientific community.From the perspective of a mother, the loss is, of course, infinitely greater. There is the personal pride of seeing your son's improbable rise from the ashes of poverty and inequality in the rural Free State town of Odendaalsrus to sail through high school and pass well enough to do a science degree at university. Not one degree but two, three and then the highest qualification anyone could earn - the doctorate.There is the loss of income, for with first-generation students a high-income salary supports a network of family members including younger siblings waiting to study further themselves.Very few South Africans gain a PhD, and a small handful of black students reach this pinnacle of an academic career. By last count, according to senior policy researcher Johan Mouton, only 816 black Africans graduated with doctoral degrees in one academic year compared with more than 6700 enrolled for the degree; and only a small percentage of that number are in the natural sciences.The shortage of black professors in the academy has headlined protests on some university campuses; there is considerable anxiety in higher education around the fact that more productive professors are retiring than coming through the ranks.Dr Matheng would no doubt have risen to become a distinguished professor and trained many others in the medical sciences. His death is a massive blow to the academy.But this is not only a story of how a mother loses a son or the country loses a scientist; it is also about how crime regularly robs us of talent, from schoolboys killed in crossfire on the Cape Flats to promising doctoral graduates murdered in their homes.