Kasi Patriot

Justice: Blind, Squinting

EFF leader Julius "CIC" Malema was sentenced but he has appealed.

Shoot the Boer, Shoot the air or Shoot the breeze...

I generally make it a point to avoid matters that require erudite minds – my own intellectual toolkit being somewhat more blunt than the lyrical offerings of Phakel’umthakathi and his ensemble when seized by patriotic enthusiasm.

Still, every so often, I succumb to temptation and stage a brief, largely unconvincing impersonation of a thinking man. Take the law, for instance. We are told that the law is blind. So committed are we to this idea that we have sculpted Lady Justice herself as a sightless woman, heroically attempting to balance scales she cannot see. And yet, in the very next breath, we are warned about “the eyes of the law.”

Blindfolds, Eyes and All

Now, unless Lady Justice moonlights as a part-time ophthalmologist, something here is amiss.

It is at precisely this point that a faint tingling begins somewhere in the vicinity of my medulla oblongata, and I am forced to consider whether the problem lies with the English language – smuggled in 1820 from across the seas by those aboard the Chapman and the Nautilus – or with the law itself, which seems unable to decide whether it is blind, all-seeing or partially sighted.

This is not, I hasten to add, a new complaint. The Dickensian character, Mr Bumble, that long-suffering emissary of bureaucratic confusion in Oliver Twist, settled the matter some time ago when he declared, with admirable clarity, that “the law is an ass – a idiot.” Still, we persist, as the Germans say: “Das Gesetz ist das Gesetz,” – the law is the law, whether or not it knows what it is doing.

Selective Vision and Red Overalls

Now, about our red-overall-clad enfant terrible whose fate was sealed this day. That he committed an offence is not in dispute. The man fired an automatic rifle in the air – an act that is, as we now know beyond any measure of doubt, frowned upon in polite legal society, though somewhat less so at township funerals, weddings (yes, there is an actual video on these here Facebook streets when the bridegroom lets lead fly), and the occasional particularly spirited weekend after a Soweto Derby.

And here the plot thickens. For if this behaviour is indeed the grave menace it now appears to be, one cannot help but wonder where the vigilant “eyes of the law” have been all this time. Have they been on tea break, a visit to the optometrist perhaps? Temporarily blinded by dust? Or perhaps selectively farsighted – capable of spotting a red overall at a hundred paces, yet mysteriously unable to detect a chorus line of celebratory gunfire in less politically inconvenient settings?

Because consistency, one is told, is the cornerstone of justice. And inconsistency, by contrast, tends to give the impression, however unfair, that the law is less a blindfolded guardian and more a somewhat distracted referee who occasionally remembers the rules when the crowd is watching.

Justice on Cue

Which leaves us with an uncomfortable possibility: that our enfant terrible is not merely a wrongdoer, but a timely one. That his punishment, while not undeserved, is perhaps unusually enthusiastic, serving purposes other than the simple correction of his ill-considered theatrics.

And so we are left, as ever, with a law that is blind when it ought to see, keen-eyed when it ought to be even-handed, and, on occasion, suspiciously well-acquainted with the script.

At this point, I feel my brief flirtation with intellectualism has run its course. Allow me, at this juncture, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, to once more gracefully withdraw from these philosophical entanglements. This I do in order to return to my regular pastime of wishing my favoured side in the PSL, the Phefeni Glamour Boys, all of the best in their quest to retain a top three finish. TQ

Kasi Patriot will be a regular column of the The Quest that will appear every Friday morning