A few years ago I wrote a brief piece about the way in which what I described as “the emulative effect” made bad behaviour, corruption, nepotism, cronyism and all-round bad behaviour, permissible.

An example of this emulative effect is when children see their parents, teachers or prelates behave in a certain way, emulate their behaviour, and it becomes permissible. This emulation goes all the way down, so to speak, from the most senior political leaders to the children who believe it is perfectly acceptable to behave with cruelty — and get away with it.

Part of this “handing down” of contentious behaviour are types of extortion that South Africans have internalised, justified, culturally assimilated and, by extension, rendered permissible. From the evidence we have heard before the Zondo Commission, there is macro-extortionism that has taken place and continues to take place in the highest offices of the land. At the micro-level, in the day-to-day lives of ordinary people, little extortions have become a type of norm.

Extortion, briefly, and some background

As I have written in this space previously, I have had an almost three-decade interest in the political economy and sociology of organised crime in southern Italy. I became especially interested in how the state was hollowed out by organised criminal groups (mainly the Sicilian Mafia, the ’Ndrangheta in Calabria and the Camorra in Campania), and how communities across cities, towns and villages from Naples to the south and in Sicily simply accepted forms of extortion as part of doing business. Extortion became culturally assimilated.

I wrote this in 2015, when I had developed insights into what we now recognise as State Capture. What the Zondo Commission has revealed is deeper networks of abuse of power, manipulation and extortion.

The simplest definition of extortion is the demand for money (or favours) using threats of violence or some kind of victimisation. It becomes systemic (and culturally assimilated) when it is accepted as normal. That is when it becomes permissible. The way it works, in some places, is that an individual or a criminal syndicate would show up at your home or business, however small or large it may be, tell you that they are your protection, and that you have to pay for their service.

This is not unlike that guy who walks up to you in a car park and says he has been guarding your car (without you asking him to do so), and expects money. You pay him something — something small — if only because you hope that the next time you park in the same lot, your car will not be damaged.

Most of the time we pay because the so-called “car guards” are simply trying to earn an honest living… In one Cape Town neighbourhood, a fellow in a yellow vest has demarcated a few residential blocks as his own turf; he protects everyone’s property (without their permission), and expects to be paid at the end of every week or month. It is hard to say no to a supplicatory appeal in a society with high levels of poverty, unemployment and a sprawling precariat.

We can either feel sorry for the guy because he has no job, or we can consider him an extortionist.

Fighting back against extortion

Among the very many revelations that have emerged from the Zondo commission is that extortive practices became the norm in the period under inquiry. Earlier this year, the commission’s presiding judge, Justice Raymond Zondo, was quite strident about apparent inaction around payment of an alleged bribe to a Gupta-linked agency that extracted a nearly R700-million claim from Transnet, a case which made specific references to bribery and “extortion”.

When former top cop Johan Booysen took the stand in the Zondo commission in April there were (again) allegations of extortion. Booysen referred, at the time, to an anonymous caller who had made a demand in exchange for dropping a case that somehow involved a range of characters in and around the Zuma family — notably The Untouchable Mr Thoshan Panday.

Evidence of extortion is everywhere. It runs from the top (from the former president) to the guy who expects payment for guarding your property — without your asking him for protection. Out of this stems a general sense of helplessness (and sense of guilt). At a macro level, the country’s dirtiest politicians, (allegedly) the former president; at a meso level, deployees of the ruling ANC (people such as Hlaudi Motsoeneng, Brian Molefe or Lucky Montana), and any public servant who demands a kickback; and a micro level, the car guard, the guy who patrols your neighbourhood and extorts you for payment — extortion has become permissible, pervasive and has poisoned the waters of South African society.

There was a case, in central Johannesburg, in September 2018 where a car guard stabbed a motorist who refused to move his car (on the guard’s instructions). Responding to the crime, SAPS, Captain Xoli Mbele, confirmed the attack.

“[The] victim parked his car and a car guard told him to remove his car there, [the] driver refused and the suspect crossed the street to fetch a knife… He came back and stabbed the driver in the upper body. A security guard came to his rescue and apprehended a suspect,” Mbele said.

Mbele urged car guards not to force motorists to pay for parking their vehicles, and motorists to pay willingly, but not if there were attempts to force them to pay.

In 2013, a car guard attacked someone’s car in Cape Town, when its owner refused to pay the guard. The event turned nasty and xenophobic, but it started when the driver refused to pay because, he explained, he had insurance. These may well be isolated incidents, but at what point does one add up isolated incidents to determine a pattern. At what point, also, does one give money because the car guard is, actually, doing a day’s work?

Either way, the evidence shows that extortion — “good” and “bad” — runs all the way through society from the top to the bottom. Hell, if the president can do it, let’s emulate him and do it ourselves.

Fighting back against corruption can be successful, but it, too, may come at a price. Fighting back against extortion has made significant gains in parts of Italy through the Addiopizzo (goodbye pizzo — pizzo is the term for extortion payment) movement. During one of my visits to Palermo, in 1993, I was told the tragic story of Libero Grassi, a Palermitani businessman who wrote a defiant letter to the local newspaper, addressed to an anonymous extortionist. The letter reminded the people of Palermo (and Sicily) about the dangers of organised crime and drew specific attention to the Mafia. Within six months, Grassi was murdered.

There is no moral equivalence between high-level extortion by politicians, business people and state officials, and the car-guard who revealed that a local (South African) extorted migrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo by “allowing” them to operate as car guards in a Cape Town mall.

For a small fee, a “cut” of their takings, he “allows” them to be car guards and offers them a form of protection. When one refused, the South African called the police — and the man from the DRC disappeared. DM