The much-ballyhooed “SA crime website” is finally online. It’s all rather macabre and cynical, pimping advertising space and crime statistics with equal vigour. It’ll get a lot of hits, of course. In a country where Jon Qwelane’s “The Sun” is the best-selling newspaper, it will probably be a smash hit. But that shouldn’t disguise what this really is: a tacky and unpatriotic piece of attention-whoring, designed more to offend people than change anyone’s mind, and calculated to damage the country.
And before anyone complains: yes, the crime problem in South Africa is horrific, and no, Charles “Whingers Must Get Out” Nqakula isn’t much of a patriot either. But the idea that badly-designed shock-websites, internet petitions and efforts to chase away tourists offer some sort of solution is, frankly, absurd.
Crime Exposed?
The much-ballyhooed “SA crime website” is finally online. It’s all rather macabre and cynical, pimping advertising space and crime statistics with equal vigour. It’ll get a lot of hits, of course. In a country where Jon Qwelane’s “The Sun” is the best-selling newspaper, it will probably be a smash hit. But that shouldn’t disguise what this really is: a tacky and unpatriotic piece of attention-whoring, designed more to offend people than change anyone’s mind, and calculated to damage the country.
And before anyone complains: yes, the crime problem in South Africa is horrific, and no, Charles “Whingers Must Get Out” Nqakula isn’t much of a patriot either. But the idea that badly-designed shock-websites, internet petitions and efforts to chase away tourists offer some sort of solution is, frankly, absurd.