Consider the spectacle unfolding in South Africa. A police force, once the blunt instrument of apartheid, now finds itself mired in scandal, its integrity questioned by a citizenry that has long since lost faith. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the British bobby is held up as a paragon of virtue. How quaint. How very Victorian. Let us not kid ourselves: this is not a story of racial redemption or colonial nostalgia. It is a tale of institutional rot, a parable that should chill the bones of every Westerner who still believes in the rule of law.
The South African Police Service, or SAPS, has become a byword for corruption. From the top brass to the beat constable, the rot runs deep. Consider the recent revelations: senior officers implicated in drug trafficking, evidence tampering, and extrajudicial killings. This is not the work of a few bad apples; it is a barrel so poisoned that even the most ardent reformer would hesitate to take a bite. One might be tempted to blame the legacy of apartheid, the fractured society, the endemic poverty. But that would be too easy. The truth is that policing, like any institution, reflects the culture that sustains it. And South Africa’s culture, I fear, is one of transactional loyalty, where the badge is a license to exact tribute rather than uphold justice.
Now look to Britain. Here, we are told, the constable is a figure of trust, a symbol of fairness. The Independent Office for Police Conduct, the various oversight bodies, the decades of procedural reform: they have made British policing the envy of the world. Or so we are told. I wonder how many of my readers recall the Hillsborough disaster, the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, the systematic failures that led to those tragedies. I wonder how many remember that it took decades of scandal to force even modest change. British policing is not perfect; it is merely less imperfect than its South African counterpart. And that, I suppose, is something to celebrate, in the same way one might celebrate a slightly less gangrenous limb.
The comparison between South Africa and Britain is instructive, however. Both nations share a common law heritage, a commitment to democratic governance, and a history of racial strife. Yet one has descended into a Kafkaesque nightmare of police impunity, while the other retains a veneer of institutional integrity. Why? The answer, I suspect, lies not in the colour of one’s skin but in the strength of one’s institutions. Britain’s police have been shaped by centuries of incremental reform, by a civil service that prizes competence over loyalty, by a media that (for all its faults) holds power to account. South Africa, by contrast, inherited a police force designed for oppression and then, in a fit of revolutionary zeal, failed to build the institutions necessary to transform it. The result is a force that is both feared and despised, a tool of the state rather than a servant of the people.
Let us not pat ourselves on the back too vigorously. The rot that afflicts South Africa could easily take hold here. Already, we see signs: the Metropolitan Police’s struggles with trust, the rise of stop-and-search controversies, the creeping militarisation of response units. If we are not vigilant, we too could find ourselves in a world where the badge is a shield for thugs and the law a mockery. South Africa is not a warning for the developing world alone; it is a mirror held up to our own complacency.
