Carol’s Column

Burying a child alive: just what IS happening to us?

What is happening to us? This morning, in the newspaper was a curt 19-line report at the bottom of Page 1 about the death of a 13-year-old boy called Shaun Charlies who lived in a squatter camp. The horror of this story is that Shaun was stabbed, throttled with a chain and then buried alive.

Worse, he was killed by three other children aged between 12 and 15. According to an 11-year-old girl who led the police to Shaun's shallow grave in the Wallacedene informal settlement, he was with a group of children when an argument broke out about money.

He tried to run away but was caught by his friends. Then murdered.

This is not just another crime. We all know the facts - that there are many South Africans who live under abominable, grossly disadvantaged circumstances for a myriad of reasons.

That violence is part of our lives with robbery, hijackings, housebreakings, mugging and even murder commonplace.

But this is tragic.

These were young children who murdered their friend. What kind of children are they?

It's too easy to say they're a result of their circumstances, surroundings, deprivation. That perhaps they've grown up without love, a stable home environment, schooling.

That they have diminished responsibility because they're children too young to realise the consequences of what they were doing. Of what they did.

But can it be that three children can stab a playmate, choke him with a chain, bury him while he is alive and not realise exactly what they are doing? These are conscious actions. Actions so horrible that they are almost not possible.

I’m a parent and I cannot imagine that something like this could happen in the town in which I stay. Just a few suburbs away in kilometres, a planet apart in reality I suppose I should be dulled by the murder of Shaun Charlies in a cynical world where genocide is a global event. Where on Page 2 of the daily paper the lengthy crime-watch list is breakfast reading.

I should be detached as I shut the door of my safe little house and comfortably drive to work listening to a chat show about dropping standards in education. My kids are safe. They would never do such a thing because we brought them up with a value system, to respect life. The murder of Shaun Charlies happened in another world. In another South Africa.

But of course, it didn't. The parents of these three child killers would have taught them right from wrong for there can be no parent who would teach a child that murder is not evil.

The children allegedly responsible for the murder of Shaun Charlies have not been named, nor shall they be as they are minors. But the community in which they live knows who they are, their parents and brothers and sisters know. Their poor parents, how do they handle something like this? And the family of Shaun Charlies, will they ever recover from this devastation?

Many things give me hope about living in this country. The energy and commitment of all kinds of people.

The decency and politeness one encounters daily. The generous spirit of forgiveness, the dynamic, excitement and determination to make this a better society for all.

The crap I can live with, after all, we did before. Corruption, inefficiency and dishonesty in government and public sectors. Strikes, labour disputes, racism and even crime.

But this is a thing apart. These 12- and 15-year-olds who did this could have been my children, our children. In a way they are and we all bear responsibility.

What can we do to turn this tragedy into something positive?

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