Village Justice

What IS justice? What is mercy? Sometimes…well, perhaps often, the line is blurry at best.

Today Benno and I pick up Rethabile for church and as we are driving away from their neighborhood (which is very dodgy and one where we are most certainly out of place) she relates her morning thus far.

She has just come from a neighboring home where a thief had been caught. He was being beaten. His ears had been cut off. Would he live, I queried. Not likely.

I was—and still am—having visions of the blood, and any vain effort to get attention at Queen II Hospital, which is horrific at best, and worse now that the nurses are currently on strike. I am feeling what it must feel like to have your ears cut off—the pain would be unendurable. Then there would be all the other pain…the blurring in and out of consciousness before succumbing to what will likely be the inevitable: death.

What did this young man steal? Twenty liters of paraffin, used for cooking and heating, and some clothing…probably to keep warm…

I've heard other stories about village justice here in Maseru, equally horrifying, but this one is just the most recent.

Then we get to church and the pastor relates how all the sound equipment had been stolen last night, and he prayed for the thief, and prayed for a quick resolution—a return of the equipment, like last time, not so long ago, when the computer and some other equipment had been stolen from the church.

Justice. Two thieves. Two different systems of justice. Maybe. I really don’t know what will happen when the person who stole the equipment from the church is caught. Will the police rough him up? Most likely. Very likely. Will his ears be cut off? Will he be beaten to death, or near death? Not likely.

So…which system is just? What a horrific question to ask, you may say, given what I have just related. The thing is I’m glad I’m not the judge or the jury here. In neighborhoods of extreme poverty and so little protection from the associated crimes, village justice provides some security…for people who don’t have big security fences, and can’t even lock their doors. Without village justice, crime would be uncontrollable…

I think of a student of mine with a small sister—eleven—who is very, very dear to him. Recently I asked him if he worries about her when she spends much time on her own—no mom in the family. What will it be like when he goes off to university and she is on her own even more? I don’t remember his exact response, but I do remember the, “Yeh,” and the something about no lock on the door. It struck me as an unusual worry. No lock on the door… Young girls here can be very vulnerable. So…what if a young girl is raped? Village justice…

I really have no answers. I just listen, and it all soaks in and makes me wonder.