Lockdown Deaths

There is a poor family in Alexandra Township that survived a terrible violation and lost a member. There is a poor family in Alexandra Township with no access to expensive lawyers to resolve the injustice done to them. One evening when they were gathered as a family enjoying dinner and laughter, the South African army barged into their home, looked around for some alcohol and then proceeded to beat a man to death and assaulted others who took video footage. When you google the name Collins Khosa this information is all there.

Khosa was accused of breaking lockdown violation. Something he was never guilty of, and something he should have never been murdered for. Collins Khosa was an innocent man. He was an innocent man spending time with his family when he was beaten to death in front of the people who loved him most. When his wife intervened, she too was assaulted. The community tried to take videos,but the soldiers ordered them to delete them, some got assaulted.

This week the results of the inquest of the death of Collins Khosa came out. The results absolved the army. It is alleged that Khosa and his brother in law undermined female officers. So, they decided it was best to kill him? The best solution to him undermining a woman was to beat him to death. If that is what is to be done to men who undermine women then there would be no men left on earth. Majority of men, on this toxic, patriachal planet undermine women but you are not beating them to death. If the two men involved were in the wrong, why didn’t they just arrest them?

How is the army not responsible for this death that was caused by a trauma to the head? Collins brains were bleeding because he was beaten, not from spending time with his family. How is the army not held accountable when the death of this man is directly related to them beating him up?

For once can we have some leadership and accountability in this country? Everybody involved in the Collins Khosa killing and all the lockdown killings must be held accountable. I was appalled at South Africans latching onto the #GeorgeFloyd campaign. You have more than one George Floyd staring you in the face. How lightly we take imperialism when grown men and women are fixated with the goings on in America and can’t address bigger issues in their own backyard. How nice it is to be American to control all the media spaces so that your pain in bigger than our pain in South Africa. How little we must thing of ourselves that we are cheerleaders in a foreign campaign and yet in our very home we have dead bodies strewn all over the living room.

Collins Khosa, Sbusiso Amos,Petrus Miggels, Adane Emmanuel……there are over ten of them. There are over 10 George Floyds who have died from police brutality in South Africa.

There is a family in Alexandra Township who need your voice South Africa...but you are busy with American campaigns. And none of your American friends have ever supported your hashtags. Some of you have even had the nerve to compare this to international support during apartheid. This is incomparable to Apartheid, but you can compare it to the over ten deaths we have experienced during lockdown and you said nothing. Suddenly you have found your moral high ground on American issues when you do not have the courage to confront your very own SANDF and government.

How disingenuous guys.