What is about the Oscar Pistorius case that has South Africa so morbidly captivated?
Besides the fact that this case looks very interesting from a purely legal perspective, what is it that’s got South Africans so emotionally involved in this particular murder case, when we live in a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world?
Is it because Oscar Pistorius is a world famous athlete? Because Reeva Steenkamp was an innocent young woman with a promising career ahead of her?
Maybe that’s part of it, but that fails to explain the emotional attachment so many people have formed with this story. Everybody (nearly everybody, to be fair there are those who are reserving judgement) seems to have closed themselves off to any reasonable argument about the events that took place that night, having decided within the first ten minutes of hearing the news whether they thought Oscar was guilty of premeditated murder or not.
Some of the comments from South Africans on social networks like Facebook and Twitter have been quite disturbing (so much so that South Africans were cautioned to be careful about the comments they made), but maybe these comments are just a reflection of the current climate in South Africa?
People are sick and tired of reading about abuse, murder, corruption, rape and every other violation of our human rights that you can think of with no justice in sight, and it’s reaching boiling point.
It turns out we’re not as desensitised as they said we were.
Then again, maybe there’s been such a huge response because Oscar Pistorius was supposed to be our hero. A role model for so many young South Africans and an inspiration to so many more. If he of all people could do something like this, what hope is there for us?
Or maybe, just maybe it’s all of the above.
Smart Alec writes for Staff Training, find out more here.