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It's worded in a very alarmist way, but the situation there is quite bad. The street-mob justice has been shown on tv documentaries before. I'm not sure, however, that the scale of it is sufficiently researched to confirm or deny the statistics quoted. Either way, unnatural deaths in Diepsloot are way higher than any of us would consider acceptable.
A friend of mine's mom used to do charity work out there. Not with any special security either. As a little old lady, she didn't feel scared, but she was going in as part of a church group. While I would never drive into Diepsloot myself, I've driven past it on quite a few occassions. Sufficiently close to be stopped by the locals if they wanted to close the road down. I do try avoid stopping at the traffic lights there and will take another route if I can, but wouldn't hesitate to drive the road if I was going out that direction.
Yes, it's wild and vigilante, and yes the police are entirely absent and too scared to take on the mobs, but the mobs are mostly ordinary people going about their lives trying to live and there seems to be a sense of street justice, even if it isn't the formal justice system and even if the system is flawed.
It may sound crazy to you and I to be killed over the equivalent of GBP 30, but that's a huge amount of money - perhaps half a month's wages - for the victims of the theft, and the sort of money that they may use to feed a family. So while the article is quick to give the impression that life is cheap, one cannot look at it as people killing over the theft of GBP 30 so much as people killing to defend themselves and their families from starvation and in doing so to uphold some sort of 'law-and-order' (if you can call it that).
But SA, as with many countries world-wide, has many fantastic virtues as well as many horrid vices. With any developing nation, you will have a huge disparity between the have's and the have not's.
As a tourist, you'd really have no reason to go anywhere near Diepsloot. If you're travelling for the soccer, you're likely to have a fantastic holiday and experience world-class hospitality. And yes, you'll largely be shielded and hidden from some of the places and things that you'd rather not see.
If you go to place like Diepsloot, it will be by choice, not by accident. If you go there modestly, you'll probably be safe. If you arrive with a camera and mobile phone that are collectively worth enough to feed two families for a month, chances are you'll leave without them and two families will be better off, without you having much say in the matter. If you're stupid and selfish enough to go in wearing a Rolex watch or a diamond necklace, you may be seriously injured as someone tries to rip it off you.
As much mis-management of funds as there is within government, there is also a huge amount of progress and development. The economic boost that the world cup is generating is fueling huge infrastructural projects and creating jobs. Economic growth is ultimately the only thing that will help give the impoverished a better life. And that's why I have no problem acknowleging just how bad things are in some of the townships. Because staying away or protesting it will only make things worse. But enjoying the fantastic aspects of what our country has to offer and spending money in the process will make the world of difference and generate both jobs and tax revenue that will help fix the problems.
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