A Tale of two Amnesties

By RUONA AGBROKO

I had the most horrible day—to put it as freshmen do—LIKE , EVER, on Tuesday last week and therefore gave in to my inner wimp. I concentrated my efforts on crying my way through Rosebank Mall and all the way back to Wits. Half way through rebuffing the sexual overtures of a middle-aged man, (who claimed he was offering sympathy) a text message came through on my phone. I skimmed through and burst out laughing, laughing so hard the tears flowed more! Mr. Pot-bellied-Pervert ran off in the direction of Truworths, obviously certain I was insane.

 
 The comic relief came from shock, horror, the SAPS (South African Police Service). And its text message read thus:
“SAPS urges SA citizens to voluntarily had in all illegal firearms before April 11...”

I had been blown away by the campaign itself, which started on January 11 and ends in five days. The SAPS was melting 80,611 guns just four days into the programme. The weapons included obsolete police weapons and guns previously recovered by police from crime scenes. All of which was reminiscent of the Niger-Delta amnesty in Nigeria. That was to encourage militants to drop their weapons as well as their line of business instead of blowing up oil installations and kidnapping innocent staff of exploration firms.
 
About 20,100 ex-militants accepted the presidential offer of amnesty, which expired on October 4 last year. Nigeria’s acting president has reportedly approved N56.2bn for the official luring of able-bodied young men away from the temptations of armed revolution.

But I digress.

Why was I laughing at The Mall of Rosebank? Simply because SAPS had unwittingly provided a leeway for the misconstruing of its message at a time when it nears its end. Why urge only SA citizens to drop their weapons, when they aren’t likely going to be the only ones in possession of illegal arms?

 
I asked a classmate and lecturer what they thought. They were of the opinion that it was most likely a slip in communication. But it is a dangerous one, in retrospect.
Picture a foreigner in court, post April-11, saying “I had no idea what to do with my unwanted firearm because the message I read said only SA citizens were allowed to drop off unwanted licensed as well as licensed firearms.” If there’s any justice in the world, he or she will walk.

But maybe it is just the wannabe-journalist in me kicking up dust, after all, these slips in official communication happen everywhere and the world hasn’t stopped.
 

Case in point: the anecdotal story of a Police PR mishap where an ‘r’ was omitted and the payoff/message to the Nigerian public became “The Police is your fiend” not fRiend.


*Agbroko is the 2010 Niall Fitzgerald scholar doing her Honours degree in Journalism and Media Studies at the University of the Witswatersrand (Wits), Johanneburg, South Africa. She writes this column for www.vuvuzela.org.za, the website for Wits' journalism department.