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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=399877" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>They were only doing their duty (Two ballades with a prologue)</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I. Prologue: Four days of terror </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The arrest was just before five o’clock <br>on a Thursday afternoon, <br>with one white and one black constable<br>waiting at his work<br>and when he returned from business<br>cuffing him and searching his body<br>and taking him into custody.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The employer notified his relatives, <br>seeing the incident <br>as a blot on the company’s name<br>and then his job was hanging in balance<br>and the charges was<br>based on a false affidavit<br>made by stepson <br>on persuasion of the mother in law</div><div style="margin:10px 0">and where his car had been stolen, <br>criminals had broken into his rented house<br>and robbed him of the TV, DVD-player, <br>hifi and everything valuable<br>no arrest was ever made<br>and the police was only doing their job<br>and will tell you<br>that another unit <br>is responsible for robberies<br>and hijackings<br>passing the buck endlessly.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Three days elapsed before a bail hearing<br>as the black state attorney<br>was that Friday busy<br>with another case<br>in another town<br>while he was innocently locked up.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It is no joke being innocent and locked up<br>in a police cell with eighteen other people<br>with one toilet, <br>in the middle of the room, <br>no shower, <br>no bathing facilities, dirt everywhere<br>and lice jumping into your hair, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">not being able to close your eyes<br>and knowing if you will be safe<br>from a attack from any of them</div><div style="margin:10px 0">being prohibited to receive any cigarettes<br>or food from the outside, <br>being served with three dry pieces of bread<br>and coffee without sugar for dinner, <br>an iron bowl as big as you hand<br>with brown porridge, without a spoon<br>and any sugar or salt in it<br>without any eating utensils for breakfast<br>and having to eat it with your bare hands<br>like a barbarian</div><div style="margin:10px 0">receiving a small bowl of porridge <br>with mince in it as lunch<br>and having to eat it<br>in the same way</div><div style="margin:10px 0">and after four days of this treatment<br>having to appear before a magistrate<br>on a Monday morning<br>without clean clothes, a shave<br>or a comb through his hair<br>he had been stripped <br>from being treated humanely <br>by the South African Police<br>and have been treated<br>like just another third world citizen<br>being made equal to a culture<br>where living like a animal<br>is regarded as being humane</div><div style="margin:10px 0">and then after his release<br>he had to get rid of all his hair<br>to get rid of the lice, <br>had to take a hot bath in antiseptic<br>and another shower after that<br>and had to throw his clothes<br>and shoes<br>into the rubbish bin.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>II. Honour your father and mother</div><div style="margin:10px 0">As a society Afrikaners had respect <br>for older people, <br>addressing older people <br>who were not even related as uncle and aunt.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I have been raised with the bible commandments<br>and one of them <br>is to honour your father and mother.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At South African schools<br>naughty children are not anymore disciplined<br>by caning, children’s rights, human rights<br>these days even take precedence<br>above the teachings of the Bible<br>and caning is viewed as assault.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I have been raised with the bible commandments<br>and one of them <br>is to honour your father and mother.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">An eleven-year-old boy<br>one afternoon while his stepfather<br>was working at the mortuary, <br>played with a ten year old girl<br>from next door<br>and both stripped naked.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I have been raised with the bible commandments<br>and one of them <br>is to honour your father and mother.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That evening the girl told her mother<br>that the boy had sexually harassed her, <br>the government welfare was contacted, <br>the boy was taken to a kid’s clinic for evaluation<br>where that boy stated that his step father<br>had sexually assaulted him.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I have been raised with the bible commandments<br>and one of them <br>is to honour your father and mother.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>III. Only doing their duty</div><div style="margin:10px 0">During the trial of the mass murderers <br>in the Second World War, <br>some people on trial stated<br>that they were only doing their duty.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Children’s rights is the in thing, <br>and on insistence of the boy’s grandmother, <br>and a declaration of the boy, <br>the police <br>went to arrest the stepfather at his work, <br>which he almost lost<br>as that company does not want to be associated<br>with people who sexually harass children.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They were only doing their duty.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The police grabbed him with their hands <br>going into the back of his pants, <br>locked him up on a Thursday<br>at the cells at the police station.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They were only doing their duty.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The stepfather is dyslectic, works as a mortician, <br>and earns a very small salary, <br>could not afford a proper lawyer <br>and it was clear that the state lawyer<br>wasn’t really up to it.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He was only doing his duty.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The mother of the stepfather, <br>(an eighty three year old pensioner) <br>had to get an advocate (a supreme court barrister) <br>for the bail defence<br>as her son was seen as a danger to society<br>and being locked up <br>in a proper jail was being considered.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They were only doing their duty.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The court decided that the boy should for a time<br>live with his grandmother<br>and she went with the story <br>to the local newspaper<br>and claimed that she and the boy<br>have got to live behind burglar bars<br>in her flat and are too scared<br>to even go shopping<br>with the stepfather out on bail</div><div style="margin:10px 0">but the grandmother and the boy, <br>was seen in a local pub, <br>where she was drinking<br>and the child was playing pool.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The newspaper and the grandmother <br>were only doing their duty.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At the court while the boy’s mother<br>was waiting in the passage way<br>(as the court case was being held in camera) <br>a police detective asked her<br>why she was still living with the stepfather? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The police detective with a pistol on his belt, <br>was only doing his duty.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">During the trial that proceeded for days upon days<br>under cross examination <br>from the defending attorney it came out<br>that the boy’s own father had molested him, <br>that the stepfather was totally innocent<br>and the stepfather’s mother (a pensioner) <br>had to pay more than sixteen thousand rand<br>in legal fees<br>and the court felt sorry for the poor boy</div><div style="margin:10px 0">and the legal system was only doing its duty.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Gert+Strydom">Gert Strydom</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=399877" data-title="They were only doing their duty (Two ballades with a prologue) de Gert Strydom" data-description="I. Prologue: Four days of terror 

The arrest was just before five o’clock 
on a Thursday afternoon, 
with one white and one black constable
waiting at his work
and when he returned from business
cuffing him and searching his body
and taking him..."></div>
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