conversations with a table mountain mugger - groundup article

[Mamil]

No one is saying this!!

 

 

I am very sorry but I'm past the point where we justify these type of behaviors and write it off as "ag shame", he is a product of his society and "if you were in his position" type of justification.

 

 

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

No matter how we try to peel this onion, the fact of the matter is that we live in a society where your life is worth approximately R5 depending on the criminal standing in front of you.

 

Personally, as fed up as I am, I feel completely powerless as not even the authorities are successful in curbing this occurrence. I mean yes we try and stay away from "problem" areas, but at the beginning of the year my girlfriend and her hiking group got attacked and one of the ladies got raped on what was described as a safe hike where... according to the authorities and the community.... this is the first time it has ever happened.

 

I am very sorry but I'm past the point where we justify these type of behaviors and write it off as "ag shame", he is a product of his society and "if you were in his position" type of justification.

 

This really hits home when something like this happens to your loved ones it is sad to say that we justify these bahviour patterns. Where will it end? Even one of the scum that attacked the Tokai teenager is now pleading for mercy as he is a victim of his circumstances.

 

A bit of rant, but my 5cents.

Agreed, and like when my wife was hijacked last year, I have a huge desire to see the perp removed from society - permanently. 

 

But - and hear me out here - none of us here are justifying his (Norton's) actions. They are reprehensible, and unjustifiable. What we're doing is discussing how to reverse the situation in which these Nortons come to be. Adjust the fatal alternatives, so to speak.  

[Skubarra]

No one is saying this!!

 

 

 

But - and hear me out here - none of us here are justifying his (Norton's) actions. 

 

Like x1000.

 

Nobody is making excuses for Norton or saying people like him are just mindless slaves to their circumstances that don't have to take responsibility for their actions.

 

If that is how you understand the "mugginghuggers" posts you are missing the point they are trying to make.

[Mamil]

Don't patronise me Mazambaam -

 

I have had a fist fight in my living room with a knife wielding gangster - so "hug the muggers" is an offensive epithet to tag me with. In my work I deal weekly with people who have survived attacks and with the relatives of those who didn't make it - so the "trumpesque" dismissive soundbyte style of argument doesn't wash with me. 

 

The solution is the diversion of resource from corrupt arms and business dealings and from the pockets of the wealthiest individuals, the top 10% which includes most of those on the forum and pumping these enormous resources into

 

1. Education -  most particularly - early childhood development programmes. The first 7 years are vital and the period where we lay down the neural circuitry that tells us what kind of world we are living in. Reworking of the disastrous outcomes based education initiative that built on the calamity and human rights abuse that was "Bantu education". Huge subsidy of tertiary education instead of tilting at nuclear windmills and signing corrupt arms deals.

 

 

2. Extended public works programmes that provide employment and skills development.

 

There isn't the money? There bloody well is - it's being wasted and misallocated at the moment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whew, the two sides are not getting closer. Some realities to me are that generally you get the government you deserve and those that want to "hug the muggers" seldom do; definitely not to the extent of setting the ultimate example by giving up their fancy bike, Camelbak and race entries (let alone internet connection). Also that a solution must always be left to "government" in some shape of form.

 

There are ways to enable (well try to) these communities with training facilities, self help for housing, labour intensive projects etc. My experience is that their success rate is very small; government corruption and incompetence (SAPS, Home Affairs, NHBRC and Dept of Labour) and community bloody mindedness (paid students at the training facility strike for higher wages, beat up the staff and burn the facility) usually kills them.

 

So Mamil et al; give us your concrete, well-thought out and resourced, financed, practical tried and true solution/s and your personal example (I would like guidance as to what works). We know what the problem is. In the meantime carrot and stick will remain as is.

[Pah Bear]

My but it must be difficult for an intellectual like yourself to engage in such elevated debate with us plebs...............

 

Clearly you don't see the conditioning of your own environment.

Are you accusing another of the very same "lack if conditioning" you don't seem to believe you suffer from? Or do you only see the negativity from the outside and remain oblivious to your own conditioning?

 

To stand in another's shoes requires one to remove the blinkers.

[Hackster]

Debates about moral relativism aside, I found the article enormously insightful. I like to know how other people think and live.

 

It confirmed two things for me.

 

I'm not going to fight a guy like Norton over material possessions.

 

I'm going to carry on greeting the people I meet on the mountain in a friendly fashion regardless of whether they look like Norton or not.

[Pah Bear]

 

1. Education -  most particularly - early childhood development programmes. The first 7 years are vital and the period where we lay down the neural circuitry that tells us what kind of world we are living in. Reworking of the disastrous outcomes based education initiative that built on the calamity and human rights abuse that was "Bantu education". Huge subsidy of tertiary education instead of tilting at nuclear windmills and signing corrupt arms deals.

 

This is where we lost the plot. No matter at what rate the country's economy develop, without a good education system you only create more lost generations.

 

And no matter what people believe, those that feel a lost generation will get tired of looking for nonexistent jobs, standing at the robot looking at "nose in the air" passers by, and a proportion will start looking at the haves passing by and taking as their "right to share" in.

 

Education is not the panacea to end it all, but without it as a start we will be unable to end the cycle.

[Musketeer]

Like x1000.

 

Nobody is making excuses for Norton or saying people like him are just mindless slaves to their circumstances that don't have to take responsibility for their actions.

 

If that is how you understand the "mugginghuggers" posts you are missing the point they are trying to make.

 

I think we might be talking past each other, I'm referring to the view of our modern society in general, not pointing fingers to anybody on this thread.

 

Better education, upliftment programs etc will most probably make a difference, but as long as society in general looks in the other direction or ,such as this reporter, deliberately keep quiet we as a whole are not helping but actually contributing to this cancer and this vicious circle.

[Robbie Stewart]

It astonishes me that we privileged mountain bikers arrive at these rural locations for rides, are ushered around the course on our bikes, each of which costs more than the farm labourer marshalls might earn in that year and are apparently oblivious to the absurdity of our entitlement.

 

Yes I work work and no doubt so do you but it isn't hard work that separates me in my 250 grand car and my 40 grand bike and 3 grand of cycling clothes and my 1 grand camelback and the new bontragers at 1400 a set on the wheels - it is an accident of birth.

 

 

 

Mamil, on 06 Dec 2016 - 6:02 PM, said:

 

What's also strikes me about the brilliant and nuanced arguments of people like Mr X in debates like this is that it seems even harder for them to shake the effects of their own environmental conditioning than it is for those in hangklip and similar places to avoid the traps of poverty, drugs and criminality. Those spaces produce fewer criminals than the privileged spaces produce criminal stupidity.

 

Let me guess .... D aggregate Christian National Education circa 1984?

 

That first bit sounds like a brag...

 

That second highlight...I hope I read that wrong...(Cause it sounds a mighty lot like someone expecting me to regret two things, a) that I was born in privilege, and b) that I am a white Afrikaner...- I will pretend this is not the case - want ek is nie spyt nie. PUNT.

 

You guessed wrong.

 

 

My problem is I get aggro  when people justify crime that affects me and calls me part of the problem. Yes.

 

^^^DIE - (i.e. THIS, for the people who might think I meant die, as in dead...I typed in Afrikaans there...for all those who do not have the privileged upbringing of a circa 80's National Christian Education)

[NickGM]

If you take an ethnic group of people and forcibly remove them from their relatively stable communities on the cape peninsula to lousy social housing in the cape flats (which unsurprisingly becomes a breeding ground for gangs and drugs), deny them jobs or an education and treat them like second class citizens for 2 generations (at the least)... and then wonder why they are pushing you off your R60k bike, then you are an idiot. 

 

I know the regime of oppression ended 2 decades ago, but it's not like all those folks suddenly said "Well this is great, I'm going to hilton college, then I'm going to study medicine at stellenbosch, get me a good education. Hard times are over!" It doesn't exactly work like that when dad is a drug lord and mom is a crack queen. 

 

So yes he chose to mug and kill people. He's a criminal and should be in jail because he will probably do it again. It's not sympathy that's required. It's empathy, which requires an understanding that runs a bit deeper than "He's a badie that must be killed (so that I can stop worrying about someone taking my R500k car)". His choices could easily have been my choices if the shoe was on the other foot. 

[Pah Bear]

You guessed wrong.

 

 

My problem is I get aggro when people justify crime that affects me and calls me part of the problem. Yes.

Stop taking the easy path and GET AGGRO. Just learn to take responsibility for your choices and "take what you like and leave the rest".

[Ferro]

Would love to hear carbon29er get in on this...

[dirtypot]

I used to work with someone who had a similar upbringing to Norton.  Drug dealer gang boss for a father (who was eventually murdered) with the whole family involved in the business.  Regular police raids, drive by's from rival gangs as well as being attacked and even shot at age seven just because of who you are.  To top it off, their cousin was also convicted of those gay nightclub murders from around the 2000's ish.  So you could say pretty low standards for a child to be brought up in.

However despite all of this, they persevered with schooling, got a job and moved out and are now in a stable relationship (over ten years) with kids.  

They are incredibly well spoken, humorous, intelligent, thoughtful and kind.  I would have no hesitations trusting them, and will happily leave my kids with them.

 

I understand that situations that kids are brought up in will shape the humans that they grow to become, but along the way they make their own decisions too.  Violence and crime is easy - its far harder to work yourself out of a situation.  Norton had an easy out (football) and chose to throw it all away.  That's an individual life choice and not a generalization due to his upbringing.

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

I used to work for someone who had a similar upbringing to Norton.  Drug dealer gang boss for a father (who was eventually murdered) with the whole family involved in the business.  Regular police raids, drive by's from rival gangs as well as being attacked and even shot at age seven just because of who you are.  To top it off, their cousin was also convicted of those gay nightclub murders from around the 2000's ish.  So you could say pretty low standards for a child to be brought up in.

However despite all of this, they persevered with schooling, got a job and moved out and are now in a stable relationship (over ten years) with kids.  

They are incredibly well spoken, humorous, intelligent, thoughtful and kind.  I would have no hesitations trusting them, and will happily leave my kids with them.

 

I understand that situations that kids are brought up in will shape the humans that they grow to become, but along the way they make their own decisions too.  Violence and crime is easy - its far harder to work yourself out of a situation.  Norton had an easy out (football) and chose to throw it all away.  That's an individual life choice and not a generalization due to his upbringing.

Exactly. 

 

It's those decisions that make or break it, and to a large extent the easier way is the way that is taken, or in the case of loved ones, they explain it away and ignore it in the hope that it'll go away, at times. 

 

"he was such a good boy" "my son would never do this" etc etc. 

 

What we need to do is remove the "easy way". Introduce proper education & employment, and revitalisation of the environment in which they live. Proper services. Dignity. Yes, there's a certain amount that they can do themselves, but it's far more difficult doing it from IY / Hangklip than it is doing it from Constantia where the service delivery & availability of PROPER, GOOD schooling is so much better. 

[Robbie Stewart]

Would love to hear carbon29er get in on this...

 

I would like to hear his side if I am allowed popcorn...

[Long Wheel Base]

Flip I saw this thread late, Have noticed a few comments have been deleted. Am trying to fill in the blanks but can't read fast enough.