AMONG all the evils of the world, there is one worse thing – and that is to snatch a child from its parents.
The child has 1 000 faces – on bulletin boards in shopping malls, on milk cartons, on neighbourhood flyers and on national media channels. Parents will forever regret the moment they let their attention wander in the mall or agreeing to that out of town trip, conjuring up scenes of cruelty, living and reliving them in an everlasting torment of self-inflicted perdition.
For Nizam and Shakira Moti, the timelessness became a reality last year when their four young sons were kidnapped from a chauffeur-driven vehicle while on their way to school. The boys were dropped off at a village after three weeks, unharmed.
Rumours and conjecture around the trade fires are that the businessman allegedly paid a ransom of R50 million. Moti is a millionaire businessman from Polokwane who owns one of the largest and most successful private car dealerships in South Africa. I can only imagine what an emotional Hiroshima it must have been for the family.
But Yeats said it long ago, “Things fall apart”. It was the human version of the entropy that powered the universe as it ticked down towards cold death. Just as some people always built things, organised, nested and planned, there were also those who caused chaos, stealing, tearing down and killing. It was a paranoid world view that if you let your guard down, chaos can rip into your life like a tornado.
Moti got an interdict against police investigators from interviewing his sons any further. All are under the age of 18. He has since shipped his family to Dubai to start a new life. The police are infuriated at his decision. But as a father and a husband who is a stickler for privacy, his actions must be respected. But we lose another successful businessman because of crime in our country. And many may lose their jobs.
KEVIN GOVENDER | Shallcross
Daily News