| Thanks, Searle. The periodicity of one or two mob justice beatings per week in some of the locations cited suggests to me that some of these may derive from a form of weekly ritual. Such are not uncommon, even in the most "civilized" of states, where individuals, because of whatever allegiances or traits they possess, are routinely targeted on a weekly basis, usually on weekends. In the case at hand, the qualifying threshold would appear to be a mere "suspicion" of being guilty of a misdeed. In the case of the 'rituals' I referred to above, they can best be described as a form of sport that is used to facilitate bonding within a group, or tribe. I used the term "tribe" here purely in its anthropological sense, and not as an allusion to any nation sector or grouping of indigenous people. Unfortunately, even if we overlook the lack of cogency and the invalidity of the best of these intentions to deal with criminals, vigilantism usually leads to the formation of new power structures that, because of their underlying disregard for the rule of law, are often worse than the regimes that came before them. This front page story is reminiscent of so many others I've read in recent years, or, to put it more accurately, since I've been tracking the goings on in Africa, that it didn't really surprise me as much as it served to validate the other accounts I've seen. FAC |
