Violence Continues To Take Its Toll

RECENT weeks have witnessed another upsurge in violent incidents in Namibia which have shocked and horrified peace-loving people in the country.

They are yet another reminder that we need to prioritise a holistic campaign against this scourge. Last weekend saw the horrific case of a young father of two children, who shot both children, his wife and his sister-in-law, in an as-yet unexplained act of random violence.The man in question then tried, but failed, to shoot himself.The incident has shocked the Khomasdal community where the shootings took place.Police crime reports also indicate that countrywide violence continues to escalate.These include continued violent abuse of women and children, stabbings and shootings, and most bizarre of all, a case of a young woman charged with raping a nine-year-old boy.Added to the repertoire of savagery is the current reportage in a court case involving two men convicted of robbing and murdering an Oamites man, where his assailants variously cut him with a knife, beat him severely with a variety of objects, stabbed him with a barbeque fork and eventually burned him, leaving the elderly man to die what was undoubtedly a slow and torturous death.Violence is something that can unfortunately never be totally eliminated from any society in the world.It will always be with us in one way or another, but it is absolutely imperative that it be minimised as much as possible.It is obviously difficult to assess the causes, and while our police forces can enhance efficiency levels in fighting crime in general, there are other incidences of violence in which they can only come in to investigate after the fact.We can, however, ask our researchers to investigate and report back on why criminals often resort to uncalled-for acts of extreme violence.In the abovementioned Oamites case, for example, the two convicts could probably have robbed the elderly man and gone off without harming him at all, since he appeared not to have offered any resistance in any case.Why, therefore, did they decide to commit gratuitous acts of torture and submit the victim to a slow death? Surely the fact that they robbed him of most of his worldly goods and ransacked his home would have been enough? But apparently not.It is tendencies such as these that need to be investigated.While we are not experts on the causes of violence, although we accept that in many cases alcohol certainly fuels such characteristics in many individuals who tend to commit such crimes, we believe that it is necessary that society dig deeper in the search for answers.Perhaps in the end it will come down to social circumstances, including family upbringing and even education.If this is indeed the case, then those concerned Namibians and institutions such as schools and churches and other community-based organisations should be making it their priority to speak out against such violence, and to educate members of their immediate societies that it is unacceptable in any form.Social workers in turn should be permitted to operate in our prisons to speak to those who commit such violent and horrific acts, in an attempt to bring us towards an understanding of why they did it.It is only by doing this that we can ever hope to try to combat violent crime and try to work towards a drastic reduction of it in our society.For our own sake and the sake of our children, we have to curb violent crime or risk raising another generation who commit similar, and perhaps even worse, horrific acts.Last weekend saw the horrific case of a young father of two children, who shot both children, his wife and his sister-in-law, in an as-yet unexplained act of random violence.The man in question then tried, but failed, to shoot himself.The incident has shocked the Khomasdal community where the shootings took place.Police crime reports also indicate that countrywide violence continues to escalate.These include continued violent abuse of women and children, stabbings and shootings, and most bizarre of all, a case of a young woman charged with raping a nine-year-old boy.Added to the repertoire of savagery is the current reportage in a court case involving two men convicted of robbing and murdering an Oamites man, where his assailants variously cut him with a knife, beat him severely with a variety of objects, stabbed him with a barbeque fork and eventually burned him, leaving the elderly man to die what was undoubtedly a slow and torturous death.Violence is something that can unfortunately never be totally eliminated from any society in the world.It will always be with us in one way or another, but it is absolutely imperative that it be minimised as much as possible.It is obviously difficult to assess the causes, and while our police forces can enhance efficiency levels in fighting crime in general, there are other incidences of violence in which they can only come in to investigate after the fact.We can, however, ask our researchers to investigate and report back on why criminals often resort to uncalled-for acts of extreme violence.In the abovementioned Oamites case, for example, the two convicts could probably have robbed the elderly man and gone off without harming him at all, since he appeared not to have offered any resistance in any case.Why, therefore, did they decide to commit gratuitous acts of torture and submit the victim to a slow death? Surely the fact that they robbed him of most of his worldly goods and ransacked his home would have been enough? But apparently not.It is tendencies such as these that need to be investigated.While we are not experts on the causes of violence, although we accept that in many cases alcohol certainly fuels such characteristics in many individuals who tend to commit such crimes, we believe that it is necessary that society dig deeper in the search for answers.Perhaps in the end it will come down to social circumstances, including family upbringing and even education.If this is indeed the case, then those concerned Namibians and institutions such as schools and churches and other community-based organisations should be making it their priority to speak out against such violence, and to educate members of their immediate societies that it is unacceptable in any form.Social workers in turn should be permitted to operate in our prisons to speak to those who commit such violent and horrific acts, in an attempt to bring us towards an understanding of why they did it.It is only by doing this that we can ever hope to try to combat violent crime and try to work towards a drastic reduction of it in our society.For our own sake and the sake of our children, we have to curb violent crime or risk raising another generation who commit similar, and perhaps even worse, horrific acts.