A dozen corpses in Johannesburg. A manhunt. And now, the British police, in their infinite wisdom, proffer counter-terror expertise. One might be forgiven for asking: is this a genuine hand of fellowship, or the first tentacle of a new imperial reach? The offer, of course, is framed in the language of benign professionalism. But the spectacle of Scotland Yard dispatching its finest to a former dominion – a nation that fought hard for its republican soul – is rich with historical irony.
Let us not mince words. South Africa is a state in crisis, a slow-motion collapse that would make Gibbon blush. Its cities are becoming no-go zones. Its infrastructure crumbles. Its political class indulges in the usual orgies of corruption. And now, mass murder. The British offer, dressed in the crisp jargon of counter-terrorism, is a reminder that the old metropole still believes it has a civilising mission. The subtext is clear: you cannot manage your own barbarism, so let the grown-ups step in.
But is this merely altruism? Or is it a quiet reassertion of influence? The British state has long had a fetish for overseas interventions, be they military or advisory. From Kenya to Malaya, the expertise offered was usually a prelude to deeper entanglement. One wonders what strings are attached to this particular spool of thread. Will British officers demand access to intelligence? Will they use this as a wedge to promote their own counter-terror doctrines? Or is it simply a PR exercise, designed to remind the world that Britain still matters?
Yet there is a deeper pathology at work here. The Johannesburg killings are not an isolated event. They are a symptom of a global disorder, the kind of chaos that emerges when state authority dissolves and the primordial loyalties of tribe and clan reassert themselves. The British, for all their talk of expertise, have no remedy for this. Their own cities simmer with similar tensions. Their own history is a graveyard of colonial experiments that ended in blood. The offer of help is, therefore, a gesture of profound self-deception: a nation that cannot solve its own problems sets out to solve another’s.
And then there is the matter of timing. This comes as Britain itself is convulsed by debates over its identity and place in the world. Brexit. The union. The culture wars. The police force that now offers to help Johannesburg is the same one that fails to curb knife crime in London. The counter-terror expertise it boasts is the same that has alienated Muslim communities. The arrogance is staggering. But it is the arrogance of a nation that has never quite come to terms with its diminished station.
Perhaps the South Africans will accept the offer. Perhaps they will politely decline. Either way, the spectacle is a useful mirror. It reflects our own delusions about competence and charity. It reminds us that the empire, though officially defunct, lives on in the minds of men who still dream of white men in pith helmets solving the world’s problems. The Johannesburg manhunt is a tragedy. The British response is a farce. And the real lesson is this: the past is never dead. It is not even past.
