ZONGILE NHLAPO: Anger the catalyst – when altercations turn deadly in South Africa

One of the survivors of the deadly Orange Farm mass shooting recalls how a victim begged the shooter: “Yimi uNomsa, uyangibona, ngenzeni angenzanga lutho” ("It’s me, Nomsa, but you know me, what did I do, I haven’t done anything”).

Sharing details of the horrid incident, Laura Maishe described the shooter as “red with rage”, who, even after all the begging, proceeded to fire deadly shots anyway.

Seven family members died, including a three-year-old child.

Soon after, it was revealed that the deadly shooting could be traced to an altercation which had reportedly ensued earlier that evening, between the shooter – a tavern owner, and a patron.

“It is alleged that the tavern owner followed him (patron) home, where the family members were still celebrating after lobola negotiations. The tavern owner entered the house and opened fire on the family members,” the police explained.

Later, the tavern owner drove home, turned the gun on himself, and died.

ALTERCATION TURNS DEADLY

The Orange Farm case is not the only one that can be traced to an altercation that turned deadly in South Africa.

*In mid-October, an argument between two men over a parking spot in the Mahikeng CBD in the North West turned violent and claimed both their lives. They were in their 30s.

*Earlier in October, a Nelson Mandela University student was killed during an altercation with an off-campus private residence manager. 

*In June, a 22-year-old student at a University of Zululand residence was stabbed to death, allegedly by a fellow student. The argument is said to have been over money. 

*In June last year, a 31-year-old man was killed in a road rage shooting in Krugersdorp, near the N14 highway. Police said a conflict had occurred at a road crossing in the area a while earlier.

*Who can forget the horrific mine stabbing in Joburg’s West Rand last year, where the alleged perpetrator proceeded to pose for selfies with the victim’s body – his colleague, lying next to him intestines exposed and all? The two men reportedly had historical conflicts.

*What about the Klerksdorp bloody parking lot brawl in September last year? Viral video footage of the incident showed the perpetrator striking the victim – who later died in hospital - with a single blow.

*And the altercation between two law enforcement officials outside a nightclub in Braamfontein in November last year – also caught on video, that led to the death of one of them?

*After watching a soccer match in Port Shepstone in November last year, a constable was shot dead by another off-duty policeman after an argument over a glass of alcohol.

*Last May, a man stabbed his mother to death at their home in Durban North. Police said what they’d gathered was “the mother and her son had an argument concerning the cleaning of the room and an altercation ensued.”

And of course, there are numerous deadly Gender-Based Violence (GBV) cases that can also be traced to anger and altercation.

*In August this year, a man was charged with the brutal stabbing of his former girlfriend at a taxi rank outside Gateway Mall in Durban. “The victim and the suspects were involved in an altercation when one of the suspects drew a knife and fatally stabbed the woman,” said police.

We could go on and on.

‘A VERY ANGRY COUNTRY’

Briefing the Portfolio Committee on Police last year, the police’s top brass told MPs that arguments, misunderstandings, road rage and provocation were the main drivers of murder, attempted murder and assault GBH (Grievous Bodily Harm) in South Africa.

This was based on the second quarter crime statistics of the 2023/2024 financial year.

“We are a very angry country. We need to find some sort of ways [to deal] with this,” was the response from the Inkatha Freedom Party's (IFP) Zanele Majozi.

The stats revealed a similar trend in 2022. Road rage, arguments, misunderstandings and provocation were listed as causes of most murders committed in Gauteng in particular, in the three months from July to September of that year.

One can take it as far back as 2019. Again, crime stats released in September of that year indicated that the biggest cause of murder in the country was an argument (further noting that the time, people were most likely to get killed was on a Saturday night or in the early hours of Sunday morning).

‘COULD NEVER BE ME’

“He’s not a mad mercenary running around moering people” was the headline of an article in which the Klerksdorp perpetrator was described as a “well-mannered” man who merely “snapped”.

In fact, the examples cited earlier are littered with family, friends and colleagues describing the alleged perpetrators as otherwise normal-temperament human beings, who, in anger, “acted out of character.”

And I suppose many of us believe we have enough self-control, that our anger will never reach certain heights, or that our arguments will never turn deadly. But I think life keeps proving that some of us may not know our limits as much as we imagine we do. 

Arguably, some of our “acting out of character” already has real-life examples.

Maybe, for some of us, this is evidenced by the fist punch marks on the walls of our homes. We were angry that much, we tell ourselves. Maybe it’s by the tables we are known to literally shake when we don’t get our way. It just escalated, we reason.

For some of us, after a few glasses of alcohol, the story relayed is always the same. We end up in heated arguments or fights with family and strangers alike. We’re provoked is how we console ourselves.

Maybe for some of us, it’s in the veiled threats of “ingasuka manje” (I can fight you now), where we even symbolically clench our fists. And then act surprised when we spend a night behind bars because that threat found physical expression in someone’s body. For others, it’s the piercing words that come out of their mouths every time they are angry. Words that people struggle to forgive them for.

Moreover, it may even be in the characteristic traits we’ve internalised as “part of our family makeup” justifying our “explosions”. You hear people say “Ave beneconsi-ke abantu balayikhaya” (members of this family have such a short fuse). And then we act perplexed when that praised and sometimes babied “consi” - which literally means a drop of water in isiZulu, brings with a torrent of destruction, or worse, that short fuse fuses with death.

If we’re guilty of any of the above incidents, then maybe, just maybe, these could be regarded as inflection points, because now we have something of a record for “what gets us there” or “riles us up” to a certain point. We have a template for our anger patterns.

Because as we glean from the West Rand mine stabbing case, sometimes it’s anger that may have been bubbling under, and seemingly, suddenly there’s an implosion.

In the Orange Farm case, it may have been a pattern of behaviour. The father of one of the victims described the tavern owner as having a history of violence, claiming he’d recently shot dead a dog outside his tavern.

And in punching walls, shaking tables, or veiled threats – it may be a thing or a person or an internalised trait that has the ability to push us farther than we imagined.

With history being one of our greatest teachers, I’d say anger is right up there among the things we need to diligently guard against in life. 

As someone once said, we all need to know where our landmines live. And we need to be proactively doing everything we can to mitigate the potential impact should anyone step on those landmines, mistakenly or intentionally.

We don’t want a case where a strike against a person results in a strike against our reputation, or worse, our otherwise clean criminal record, or even worse than that, a permanent strike on our conscience because one blow in anger or when we were "out of character” proved fatal.

This reminds me of a Bible verse that cautions against anger that I’ve often pondered on when confronting my own rage. “In your anger do not sin” Paul writes to the church in Ephesians. He further encourages them not to let the sun go down while they are still angry.

Perhaps The Message Bible captures it best for me, as it makes it clear that anger in and of itself is not necessarily a sin, but its potential consequence when undealt with: “Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry - but don't use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry.”