So I've just driven out of Wits Business School approaching the St. Andrews fourway, with the Engen garage and the Nandos on my left and that building with the FNB atm's on my right.
The robot is red, it’s a cool January summer evening around 8pm, my windows are all down, I am listening to some music, kasi boy-style, when I hear what originally sounded like women laughing at the top of their voices, you know like kasi women do. But it was a bit unusual for kasi women to be around these regions at this time. I ignore this kasi behaviour, I listen to my house music, House Afrika Sessions 4, Aziwe baba.
The laughing now sounds like screaming, I turn down the volume and it is screaming all right. It pierces through the Jozi darkness and the loudness of my speakers, it scares me a bit. I press pause and I realize it is coming from a woman running up St. Andrews, she is screaming for help.
The robot is still red.
Eventually my eyes locate the screaming lady but I am trying to make sense of her screams, which are harder to make out because she is screaming, crying, running and battling to find her breath.
The seriousness of the situation is exacerbated when a white corsa bakkie pulls up in the middle of the road (towards oncoming traffic), right next to the lady who is running on the pavement.
A pretty buff late thirties fellow who looks to be irritated by the woman's screams, angrily comes out of the car, grabs the lady by her arms, pulls her, around the back, opens the passenger door and shoves her, violently into the car.
I now can fully make sense of the woman’s screams, "Hayi, ndiyeke, andisakufuni...Ndincedeni, ndincedeni...Hayi ndiyeke, ndiyeke andisakufuni" (Leave me, leave me I do not wannt to be with you anymore, SOMEBODY HELP ME!!!)
My robot turns green, I have to do something, I don't know what it is...but it I have to do something.
JESUS TAKE CONTROL!!!
This scene is happening right on the lane I am supposed to turn into, I decide to drive straight towards his car, so that we stand bonnet-to-bonnet. I stop and open the door, he has just shut the door of the passenger side, where he had just forced his unwilling passenger into. But when he arrived to get into his driver side to drive off, my silver Kia was carefully standing nose-to-nose with his car.
As you can imagine there is a bit of traffic now, I am now stuck, with one foot outside and another inside the car.
I'm in a predicament, a quagmire.
There is a traffic jam which I am indirectly part of, there is also a woman who is in desperate need of saving, and there is also the possibility that this abusive little king-kong could drive into my car...never mind the fact that I am making him angry by standing right in his way.
The other problem is I am also trying to consider my own safety here, the fellow is buff and he is angry…he may also be a pirates fan…the perfect combination to totally flatten me.
JESUS TAKE CONTROL!!!
The traffic jam continues, the screaming lady opens the door which she just got shoved into, trying to escape, she doesn't know whether to run east or west. There is traffic remember, she is panicking, confused…I am confused.
There is a fellow in a car on my right, who arrived just after me, he is still in his car...he is asking, "Kanti kwenzakalani manje lana" (what is happening here) in the comfort of his car. I was desperately hoping that some of the people in the other cars would come out of their cars, this would give me that little needed confidence to fully attend the situation.
There are about 6 or 7 cars in this traffic jam, I am the only one who is outside of his car to help this lady...well half-out at least.
The villain, who is now also in a quagmire had just opened the door of his car but his victim ran out. His attention is now divided, between the obvious attention he has now drawn and his victim whose directionless running and screams are causing even more attention: The challenges of an abuser!
The lady in all her directionless running finds direction towards my car, she runs towards me, and latches onto the handle of my right rear passenger door, it opens, she slips in, she urges me to drive, the fellow who is comfrotably in his Corolla on my right also urges me to drive.
This makes 2, I was a bit reluctant, but my black superga's found their way to the accelerator, I drive, as fast as I can, I look behind me, I don't see a white corsa bakkie.
I skip the red robot on Jan Smuts, causing a near accident, I turn left to catch the freeway, the M1 from Jan Smuts...but I dubiously off-ramp on Empire, I skip the red robot on Empire (nearly causing another accident) and turn left towards Wits University.
The lady I have just rescued, desperately wants me to go to a place of safety, a police station but I am reluctant, the king-kong saw my car and no doubt will be driving around that area looking for me and his victim. I decided rather to go into Wits University because I still have my Alumni card. I slip through the the security boom gate, and park my car opposite the planetarium...which gives me a good view of the boomgate, just in case the fellow decides to do something unsmart.
I turn the car off and talk to the lady in the backseat of my car whose face I had not even seen properly, I was too busy trying to make sure we escaped unseen by the possible blood-thirsty boyfriend.
I turn on the lamp to look at her, she is shaking and crying...she examines the bruises from her right hand right up to her arm and does the same on her left. She has been man-handled alright, the emotional pain and fear is visible in her eyes. Judging from the blood on her left-side of the collar of her nurse's uniform she would have suffered a lot more physical pain had there not been some intervention.
I inquired about this man and why he would want to do this to her. Why he would want to harm her so.
She tells me that this man is the father of her child, she ended the relationship after a couple of abusive stints, he is possessive and abusive.
Needless to say, this fellow refuses to accept that it is over...he absolutely refuses and would rather beat this lady into submission.
As we waited for her friends to pick her up, she told me how she was fed up, she wanted out but this man, this monster just wouldn't let her go...he just didn't understand.
When her friends arrived and thanked me for helping her out, they also happened to mention that this man was a medical doctor..."A whole doctor..." the friend said with evident disbelief, “A whole doctor!” as if a medical degree precludes people from being abusive.
I do not think of myself as much of a hero, as a matter of fact, as much as I had an urge to do something, I also thought, judging from the man's build that I was better of not confronting the man physically. My parking right in front of him was a way in which to cause some commotion that would, by some chance, cause a situation for other people to help or cause such a scene that he would have to back down. I tried to speedily weigh my options, the last of which was a physical fight with this monster.
I also need to be honest: I have never entertained or taken part in a “Women Abuse” forum. I remember flipping through a Big Debate forum on eNCA, I tuned the decoder to 403 but when I realized that it was about women abuse I turned it off, I just wasn't interested in engaging in these matters.
Partially because the debates were very unappealing to me, as opposed to Economic Freedom for instance, or the quality of leadership.
Partially because the issue has never really happened close to home and because I've always believed that instances where women get abused are not the same, they cannot be all put under one umbrella. When people talk about these issues they never really talk about other abuses such as they manner in which women abuse men, either emotionally and sometimes even physically and get away with it because they are women.
So our debates, I felt, were not truly representative of the full picture and were thus bound to attract dissociation from one part of society.
My experience on that Monday evening has kind of altered my view on this issue. More directly it has focused my attention on what I can do as a man to ensure that we take control of ourselves and our actions regardless of what the female species does to us.
What I saw on that Monday evening was a man who, with pure disregard of his surroundings, forcefully shoving a women into his car and from the blood on her collar there was obviously more things done to her that I didn’t see.
Of course I don't know the circumstances around that incident. This lady probably 'chowed' this man's money and left him dry. She probably entertained other men at his expense...and maybe even done worse.
I know that the law does not protect men from such abuse, neither does it provide corrective justice, I don't know how to solve this issue.
What I do know, however is that we cannot grow up and raise our sons and daughters in environments where women get abused and men standby and let it happen.
In this environment cowardice and excuses cannot be tolerated either. The funny thing about the situation is the other motorists did arrive and simply observed what was going on like the guy in the Corrolla right next to me, who shouted out questions from the comfort of his car.
The other guy was a white man, who obviously did not want to involve himself, he just slowed down and waited for the jam to die down.
The question I ask myself today is, "What if it was your daughter that was getting manhandled by a monstrous ex-boyfriend in the middle of St. Andrews? How aggressive would you be? How confrontational would you be?"
The issue of self-preservation in the face of blatant injustice is one of the most destructive in any nation. When people would rather keep quiet in order to save themselves has more costs than benefits.
It turns out that the fellow had a gun in the car and in all likelihood he would've killed me. Knowing me, I would've died by heart attack just by seeing the gun.
When I look at it now, maybe I could've died, I was a bit afraid of getting injured, which is probably why I didn't immediately charge.
But what I can say, is that I cannot let somebody else's daughter be abused and even possibly die solely because she is of no relation to me. That's just pure selfishness on my side.
I think every society and generation has the ability within it to create a new 'normal', i.e. a state of affairs that is the norm in that country. Poverty cannot be our normal, joblessness cannot be our normal, neither should corruption...neither should other people's daughter be abused in our midst while we watch on. I think watching as this happens is (tacit) consent.
(After the incident the lady through her friend called me and thanked me dearly, she had just come from the police station and is allegedly pursuing a restraining order. They also asked me if there is any gift I would like, or any thing that they could do for me, just to thank me...I replied, 'No!' Not to project false humility, but that act was not an act of bravery. Just an act of good driving, luck and the sheer fortune of my alumni card coming in handy and Wits being close by.)
-SGM
