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The Street: Exposing a World of Cops, Bribes and Drug Dealers by Paul McNally (first published in 2016 by Pan Macmillan South Africa)
McNally, an award-winning journalist and the Director of Citizen Justice Network living in Johannesburg, immerses himself in the seedy underworld of Ontdekkers Road in Jozi.
Here, for 2 years, he intimately observes the co-existence and interactions between criminals, cops and everyday people; and finds that, ultimately, there is no cut-and-dry answer to the question of morality.
The main players in McNally’s “story” include Raymond, a shop owner who keeps a daily record of the corrupt acts he sees and experiences first-hand.
In particular, police officers taking bribes from dealers. He is, however, a dubious figure who sometimes does “questionable” things to keep himself and his family safe.
For Raymond, his shop, set in the heart of the drug territory, is an anxiety-filled space. So, he does what he needs to do. It’s not about obtaining peace, but obtaining it at any cost within his unique circumstances and discourse of beliefs and experiences.
Then there’s Khaba, the middle-aged cop who has lost faith in the corrupt, failed system he once found so honourable.
And Wendy, the petite blonde, ageing police reservist whose police officer husband was killed in a drive-by shooting by drug dealers he was trying to bring to justice.
Khaba and Wendy both have had to do similarly “questionable” things in the past, be it being present at gruesome torturing or counterfeiting money - no one’s clean.
Toss in a Nigerian drug dealer and his cop girlfriend Lerato and you have Ontdekkers Road’s most notorious power couple upsetting the lawless, yet precariously balanced ecosystem, created by all the players within it.
Nothing about this space is simple or easily defined. McNally demonstrated this when he notes that he no longer has a straightforward attitude towards the police.
Some actions simply cannot be justified, yet to the doer these very actions are completely natural - almost essential to survival within their unique world.
He questions the very idea of morality in this book. What is moral when the rules are as murky as a cess pool? People are as moral as they are allowed to be. It’s limited to the options that are available to them.
McNally shows that crime is symptomatic behaviour of a broken society, and not necessarily of a broken people.
Delving into the lives of people so starkly different from himself, McNally has created an gripping piece of work. Anthropological, basic journalism, that’s anything but basic.
Purchase a copy of the book from Takealot.com.
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