Jonny Steinberg: 'A monkey came all the way from London to have his wife murdered here," General Bheki Cele spat out last week. "Shrien (Dewani) thought we South Africans were stupid ..."
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Among the blue-collar workers who service Cape Town's insured world are young men who go home at night to the other, uninsured, world
He claims innocence, for now, and he is innocent until proven otherwise.
But let us assume, for the sake of exploring Cele's outburst, that Dewani did bring his new wife here to have her killed. Was he a monkey to think he could get away with murder here?
Actually, I think he got South Africa about 95% right. He overlooked just one factor, something that in retrospect must seem to him a subtle detail, but one which, nonetheless, ruined his plans and his life.
Think about it. At Cape Town International Airport, a foreign tourist allegedly picks out a taxi driver at random and asks him to arrange to kill his wife. The taxi driver not only agrees at once, but knows where to find gunmen, how to manage the project, how best to arrange a price.
It is perhaps the starkest, most vivid testimony to the two worlds that stand side by side in South Africa's cities. The first is a sophisticated, modern place where transactions are conducted in glass and steel buildings and are underwritten by a thick body of commercial law. The men and women of this world have cars and homes and lives that are all insured against risk, and the insurance business thrives because these men and women do not live risky lives.
In the other world, a stone's throw away, four out of five young men have no work. Few of their transactions are underwritten by law and they can insure neither themselves nor their possessions. Instead, they must improvise: they must protect themselves against risk either by acquiring a gun or by acquiring the friendship of a person with a gun.
Zola Tongo was from this other world. That is why, when a stranger allegedly came to him and asked him to arrange to kill his wife, Tongo knew exactly where to go. For in a world where four out of five young men have no work, a world where transactions are not underwritten by law, the insurers are people with guns and young men know where to find them.
Dewani allegedly got that much right.
Among the traders and blue-collar workers who service Cape Town's insured world are young men who go home at night to the other, uninsured, world; in this world are people who, for a modest fee, might kill a tourist's wife.
Dewani got something else right, too. He knew South Africa's detective service is not much interested in the murders committed in the uninsured world.
This is something I know too. I have watched detectives investigate the killing of young men in urban shack settlements; I have seen them go through the motions for a couple of hours, then knock off for a long lunch followed by an afternoon of paperwork.
Allegedly, Dewani did get one thing horribly wrong, and it proved fatal. He overlooked the invigorating effects of humiliation and pride.
If there is anything that brings South Africa's state apparatus to life, it is the scornful gaze of Europe, the gaze that accuses you of being incompetent because you are African.
Whether the accusation is that Africans cannot stage a World Cup or that they cannot solve a murder, the prospect of racial humiliation turns lethargic institutions into models of excellence.
A modern state machinery that on a normal day slumbers through one Guguletu murder after another, roars suddenly to life. Its personnel descend on the uninsured world in anger and with purpose.
Using great skill and agility, and assisted by the finest forensic technology, they sift through the evidence of murder. They interrogate and interview and offer plea bargains. Within days, they have court-ready evidence.
Back home, Dewani allegedly watches proceedings with growing alarm.
He is learning, in the hardest way, a lesson about statecraft in the developing world.
Among the things that animate African governance, he learns, wounded pride is perhaps the most potent.
A dozen murders among the people of the uninsured world will not stir the South African state to action. But the prospect of being scorned and ridiculed by people an ocean away produces wonders.
Yes, General Cele, if Dewani did it, he is a monkey: he did not anticipate the sting of your pride.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article821191.ece/Only-hurt-pride-prodded-police-into-action-over-Dewani
