Axe of justice or a tradition of fools?

In an era where nothing surprises or shocks anymore, one thing always makes my blood run cold.

I’m familiar with the sight of death in many forms, but watching mob justice in action is something I can’t accept or get used to.

Just after the election results were released, a video hit facebook that went viral within moments. In this video you can see a woman (one of many victims of this barbaric custom) being beaten to a pulp.

Rumour has it that an election-related tiff between ANC (the attackers) and Cope (the victim) supporters led to this. Personally I don’t believe that something so meaningless could have led to this, but yet again, they might have stooped that low.

I had to close the video and rely on my imagination for the rest as watching someone’s skull being smashed by an axe is not my preferred pastime.

This is just one of the hundreds of videos of similar cases available online.

The concept of mob justice (according to my knowledge) is to deal with offenders outside of the justice system. For instance, if you steal my braai, I will report it to the community leaders who will instruct me and our neighbours to chop off your hand. If we find out (or assume) that you practice witchcraft, have raped someone in the community, acted against our beliefs or anything to that effect, you will pay with your life.

Now while I agree that rapists deserve the harshest punishment known to man, I can’t agree that just anyone should be trusted with playing judge and jury.

It is understandable that if someone rapes your child, you instinctively would want that person to suffer a cruel death. But if someone in your community practices a different religion or you assume that they might be involved in Satanism, who are we to take lives?

There is a thin line between right and wrong. We all know the basics and that our conscience is able to tell us if we do something morally unacceptable, but we cannot kill people based on our definition of right and wrong.

If I had known the circumstances surrounding this case, I might reconsider, but I still would not want to watch the woman get killed or participate in killing her. How does one sleep at night?

If someone kills a member of my family, I’m sure I would want to give them a taste of their own medicine; providing of course that I have proof of the murderer’s identity. If I don’t have proof, innocent people might die. On the other hand, if I felt obliged to kill every person whom I disagree with, this country would be a lot less populated.

I strongly disagree with mob justice as a custom and I am sure many innocent lives have been lost at the hands of those who participate in this madness.