GARETH VAN ONSELEN: The increasingly abnormal norms of life in SA
It’s like the Brothers Grimm are writing our grand democratic journey
The past fortnight has been, shall we say, interesting. Let us try and summarise some of the more eventful issues: In KwaZulu-Natal, a man casually walked into the Estcourt community police station and said he was, "tired of eating human flesh". It is alleged he and two accomplices killed a woman, cut her up and ate her. Reportedly, their modus operandi was to find a woman, rape her, murder her and then consume her body. August is women’s month. Therefore, normally, you would suspect the victim would become the focal point of any subsequent attention. But the nature of the crime precluded that. Cannibalism tends to have that effect. Subsequent reports suggested as many as 300 people had likewise knowingly eaten human flesh in that particular community, all prescribed by a local nyanga. Police later denied the number, but only on the grounds that no one had come forth to confess.Given that they were only alerted to the possibility of mass cannibalism in their own community when a per...
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