There is a scene in Narcos, the series about the rise and fall of druglord Pablo Escobar, in which two sicarios (hitmen) have an argument over killing a baby. Her mother, a “loose end” in seething, violent 1990s Bogotá, lies murdered at the foot of the toddler’s high chair.
The kid will rat us out, says the leader. The other gunman is sickened. “How much do you remember from when you were two years old?” he asks.
We have long passed that inflection point in this country’s staggeringly violent history since Jan van Riebeeck and his sicarios — all members of that original gang, the Dutch East India Company — beached their boats and stuck the company flag in “their” turf.
In our cowardly new world, it comes as no surprise to hear that a man used a baby as a human shield in a gunfight with a rival gang in Bonteheuwel. Let that sink in: a baby. Who died later on the operating table.