A mob attacks a man on suspicion of being a thief.
I have heard many stories of crowds meting out
justice in Tanzania. The punishments range from stoning to placing a
tire over the head of a person suspected to be a thief dousing it with
petrol and setting it alight, also known as “neck-lacing”.
Suffice it to say, that “mob justice” invariably ends with a lifeless body on the streets waiting for the police to collect. I have heard of mothers, fathers and brothers too afraid to go out to help their loved ones as an angry crowd intent on doing justice is a fickle animal, if it feels that you are thwarting its efforts it will simply turn like the wind and necklace you too for daring to protect a “thief”.
The tale that has stood in my mind the most is the one I am about to tell you, because I heard it from a member of the crowd that meted out the justice and I shall go to my grave remembering it—most of all remembering how an ordinary man—who goes to the mosque on Friday, and loves to laugh became a member of a crowd and meted out justice to a stranger accused by another stranger of stealing without any regret.
There is an old taxi driver I have known for what appears to be an eternity. He is a kind man who has children and a wife, and who makes me laugh. I like to tease him, particularly about any recent “nyumba ndogo” he might have. He is a man who has suffered his own personal tragedy of losing a son in the prime of his life in a motor accident.
My mzee has still managed to stay cheerful and continue living and seeing the positive side of human nature despite the fact that to date the company charged with insuring the vehicle which caused his son’s death has not paid him what was due to him, and by the time he came to see me to assist him, his claim was time barred.
One day, whilst he was driving me to Court of all places, he started narrating to me in an excited tones the events he had experienced the previous night. He explained that he was sitting in his taxi at his usual taxi rank, on a quiet hot Dar es Salaam evening, when an animated crowd passed by. Curious he got out of the taxi and followed the tail end of the crowd asking what was going on.
He was informed that the crowd had caught a thief and was taking him to the Police Station. The “thief” was being poked and pushed around by some members of the crowd, whilst others were screaming abuse at him. As the crowd swelled, the arms jutting out of the crowd began to land hard punches on the “thief”.
As if invigorated by the punches, the crowd took on a new and violent lease of life, and started beating the “thief” to a pulp. As he lay writhing in agony on the dusty roadside, members of the crowd picked up stones and stoned the alleged thief. Chuckling and bouncing excitedly up and down in the driver’s seat, my Mzee described how he picked up some stones and joined in the mayhem, pelting the “thief” who was by then curled up in a ball, screaming and asking for forgiveness.
A concrete brick, laying under a Mango tree, which was probably used as a resting place for the world weary, was then picked up by a John Doe, who shall forever remain anonymous. With precision John Doe aimed the brick at the “thief’s” head, lifted it with both hands into the dark night and with all his might brought it crashing down. My mzee then opened his mouth and imitated the last sound the “thief” made. I can only describe it as a strangled yelp. Then there was silence and the crowd hastily dispersed into the night.
When the police finally arrived on the scene, there was only a mangled human body to scrape off the sand and dust and throw into the back of one of the Force’s tired Landrover Defenders. Miraculously there were no witnesses and we all know that there never will be any witnesses to the “thief’s” brutal demise.
With a merry laugh, my Mzee ended his tale by exclaiming “We got him!” I asked the old taxi driver whether he felt any remorse for being party to the death of another human being. His answer was simple.
“He was not human. He was a thief and he got what he deserved!” “What about sending him to the Police?” I asked. “What for? It’s a waste of time!” he responded. His remarks signalled the end of this particular conversation and he deftly moved on to another subject of consequence to him.
This incidence took place 8 years ago and it has remained in the back of my memory, once in a while making its way to the fore and causing me to wonder what makes a perfectly normal person turn on another and feel justified to kill him simply because he was called a “thief”.
This week, my memory went back to the “death of the thief” because a neighbour attempted to rape the 10 year old daughter of one of my employees. My employee was on her way to work at 4.30 am because if she leaves her home any later she will arrive at midday, when her neighbour sneaked into her daughter’s room.
It was the little girl’s scream that saved her. The neighbour has “disappeared”, leaving a wife and children behind. The Police apparently cannot find him.
There are probably a myriad reasons why ordinary Tanzanians engage in mob justice and I don’t dare claim to know all the answers, however as a legal practitioner, I think I can shed a little light on at least some of the reasons.
Mob justice does not happen in Tanzania because we are evil and violent people. In fact, in my view the average Tanzanian is extremely affable.
He is no different from any other person. I have spent a large portion of my life in the United Kingdom and in my experience, when you dig deep into the soul of a person, there is very little difference between an average Dar es Salaamite and an average Londoner. So why then does a taxi driver in Dar es Salaam happily engage in mob justice and feel justified to do so when a cab driver in London would never dream of doing so?
My view is that in London unlike in Dar es Salaam, the criminal justice system works. A person who files a criminal complaint is secure in the knowledge that his complaint will be investigated thoroughly by the Police. On completion of the investigation, charges will be filed and the accused will be tried, in most cases, before a jury of his peers.
The trial will run on consecutive days until its conclusion and the jury will arrive at a verdict in a matter of hours.
On the other hand, like Londoners, Dar es Salaamites are also informed by their personal experiences of the criminal justice system as it operates in Tanzania. This experience has taught them that the criminal justice system is excruciatingly slow, unpredictable and unjust. To make matters worse, the criminal justice system is administered by the police and the judiciary, institutions, which are constantly ranking as first and second most corrupt in studies on corruption in Tanzania.
It should be remembered that these studies are a reflection of the general public’s perceptions, and these perceptions necessarily feed conduct. The erosion of the “mwananchi’s” confidence in the criminal justice system leads to acts of vigilantism. The rationale seems to be, if the State won’t take care of my personal security then I will do it myself.
I should at this point state that the Court of Appeal, the Highest Court in Tanzania has been known to nullify a decision in which the lower court has found someone guilty for a crime as serious as armed robbery because inter alia the magistrate wrote the words “I find you guilty of the offences as charged” as opposed to saying the words “I convict you for the offences as charged”. The Court of Appeal condemned the magistrate as “He accordingly found them (the Appellants) guilty of the offence of armed robbery. He did not, however, convict them!”.
You are no doubt asking yourselves, what the difference is between the two phrases. Well beats me but according to the Court of Appeal there is a “legal” difference, so subtle and so important that it allows a man found guilty of a criminal offence no matter how heinous to go scot free. I was personally so confounded by this particular decision that I looked up the definition of the word “to convict” in Collins English Dictionary. Lo and behold, scholars of the English language state that “to convict” means to “pronounce someone guilty of an offence”. This meaning may apply in England but certainly not in Tanzania.
Imagine, if you were the victim of a crime and you were informed that the Court of Appeal quashed your tormentor’s conviction because the magistrate “found him guilty” before pronouncing the sentence when he should have “convicted him” before passing a sentence. Would you understand? No amount of lecturing Tanzanians on the evils of mob justice will bring this conduct to an end. We need to look into and address conduct which fuels mob justice.
The death of the “thief” was celebrated by the mob but was never condemned by the State. On paper, we should have Coroner’s Courts to enquire into deaths of people reasonably suspected to have died violently or of unnatural causes but in practice there will never be an inquest into the death of the “thief”.
His family and friends will never have the satisfaction of hearing a Coroner, representing the State, record and announce in open court a verdict that the “thief’s ” death was “unlawful”. We will never know who this thief was and where he was going.
He has been dehumanised and unless he is humanised, the society will be left forever believing in its core that the “thief” deserved exactly what he got irrespective of the frequent lectures from people, particularly in positions of authority that mob justice is in itself unjust.
These voices fall on deaf ears and are regarded as the voices of patronising have-it-alls, who simply do not know what it is like to live in a society in which personal security is not guaranteed by the very institutions set up for this purpose.
As I end this piece, I ask you to ask yourself one simple question, “if the institutions charged with administering criminal justice in Tanzania did so effectively and efficiently would Tanzanians resort to taking the law into their own hands?”. My simple answer is, I think not. Mob justice is but a symptom of the degeneration of the rule of law in Tanzania.
Suffice it to say, that “mob justice” invariably ends with a lifeless body on the streets waiting for the police to collect. I have heard of mothers, fathers and brothers too afraid to go out to help their loved ones as an angry crowd intent on doing justice is a fickle animal, if it feels that you are thwarting its efforts it will simply turn like the wind and necklace you too for daring to protect a “thief”.
The tale that has stood in my mind the most is the one I am about to tell you, because I heard it from a member of the crowd that meted out the justice and I shall go to my grave remembering it—most of all remembering how an ordinary man—who goes to the mosque on Friday, and loves to laugh became a member of a crowd and meted out justice to a stranger accused by another stranger of stealing without any regret.
There is an old taxi driver I have known for what appears to be an eternity. He is a kind man who has children and a wife, and who makes me laugh. I like to tease him, particularly about any recent “nyumba ndogo” he might have. He is a man who has suffered his own personal tragedy of losing a son in the prime of his life in a motor accident.
My mzee has still managed to stay cheerful and continue living and seeing the positive side of human nature despite the fact that to date the company charged with insuring the vehicle which caused his son’s death has not paid him what was due to him, and by the time he came to see me to assist him, his claim was time barred.
One day, whilst he was driving me to Court of all places, he started narrating to me in an excited tones the events he had experienced the previous night. He explained that he was sitting in his taxi at his usual taxi rank, on a quiet hot Dar es Salaam evening, when an animated crowd passed by. Curious he got out of the taxi and followed the tail end of the crowd asking what was going on.
He was informed that the crowd had caught a thief and was taking him to the Police Station. The “thief” was being poked and pushed around by some members of the crowd, whilst others were screaming abuse at him. As the crowd swelled, the arms jutting out of the crowd began to land hard punches on the “thief”.
As if invigorated by the punches, the crowd took on a new and violent lease of life, and started beating the “thief” to a pulp. As he lay writhing in agony on the dusty roadside, members of the crowd picked up stones and stoned the alleged thief. Chuckling and bouncing excitedly up and down in the driver’s seat, my Mzee described how he picked up some stones and joined in the mayhem, pelting the “thief” who was by then curled up in a ball, screaming and asking for forgiveness.
A concrete brick, laying under a Mango tree, which was probably used as a resting place for the world weary, was then picked up by a John Doe, who shall forever remain anonymous. With precision John Doe aimed the brick at the “thief’s” head, lifted it with both hands into the dark night and with all his might brought it crashing down. My mzee then opened his mouth and imitated the last sound the “thief” made. I can only describe it as a strangled yelp. Then there was silence and the crowd hastily dispersed into the night.
When the police finally arrived on the scene, there was only a mangled human body to scrape off the sand and dust and throw into the back of one of the Force’s tired Landrover Defenders. Miraculously there were no witnesses and we all know that there never will be any witnesses to the “thief’s” brutal demise.
With a merry laugh, my Mzee ended his tale by exclaiming “We got him!” I asked the old taxi driver whether he felt any remorse for being party to the death of another human being. His answer was simple.
“He was not human. He was a thief and he got what he deserved!” “What about sending him to the Police?” I asked. “What for? It’s a waste of time!” he responded. His remarks signalled the end of this particular conversation and he deftly moved on to another subject of consequence to him.
This incidence took place 8 years ago and it has remained in the back of my memory, once in a while making its way to the fore and causing me to wonder what makes a perfectly normal person turn on another and feel justified to kill him simply because he was called a “thief”.
This week, my memory went back to the “death of the thief” because a neighbour attempted to rape the 10 year old daughter of one of my employees. My employee was on her way to work at 4.30 am because if she leaves her home any later she will arrive at midday, when her neighbour sneaked into her daughter’s room.
It was the little girl’s scream that saved her. The neighbour has “disappeared”, leaving a wife and children behind. The Police apparently cannot find him.
There are probably a myriad reasons why ordinary Tanzanians engage in mob justice and I don’t dare claim to know all the answers, however as a legal practitioner, I think I can shed a little light on at least some of the reasons.
Mob justice does not happen in Tanzania because we are evil and violent people. In fact, in my view the average Tanzanian is extremely affable.
He is no different from any other person. I have spent a large portion of my life in the United Kingdom and in my experience, when you dig deep into the soul of a person, there is very little difference between an average Dar es Salaamite and an average Londoner. So why then does a taxi driver in Dar es Salaam happily engage in mob justice and feel justified to do so when a cab driver in London would never dream of doing so?
My view is that in London unlike in Dar es Salaam, the criminal justice system works. A person who files a criminal complaint is secure in the knowledge that his complaint will be investigated thoroughly by the Police. On completion of the investigation, charges will be filed and the accused will be tried, in most cases, before a jury of his peers.
The trial will run on consecutive days until its conclusion and the jury will arrive at a verdict in a matter of hours.
On the other hand, like Londoners, Dar es Salaamites are also informed by their personal experiences of the criminal justice system as it operates in Tanzania. This experience has taught them that the criminal justice system is excruciatingly slow, unpredictable and unjust. To make matters worse, the criminal justice system is administered by the police and the judiciary, institutions, which are constantly ranking as first and second most corrupt in studies on corruption in Tanzania.
It should be remembered that these studies are a reflection of the general public’s perceptions, and these perceptions necessarily feed conduct. The erosion of the “mwananchi’s” confidence in the criminal justice system leads to acts of vigilantism. The rationale seems to be, if the State won’t take care of my personal security then I will do it myself.
I should at this point state that the Court of Appeal, the Highest Court in Tanzania has been known to nullify a decision in which the lower court has found someone guilty for a crime as serious as armed robbery because inter alia the magistrate wrote the words “I find you guilty of the offences as charged” as opposed to saying the words “I convict you for the offences as charged”. The Court of Appeal condemned the magistrate as “He accordingly found them (the Appellants) guilty of the offence of armed robbery. He did not, however, convict them!”.
You are no doubt asking yourselves, what the difference is between the two phrases. Well beats me but according to the Court of Appeal there is a “legal” difference, so subtle and so important that it allows a man found guilty of a criminal offence no matter how heinous to go scot free. I was personally so confounded by this particular decision that I looked up the definition of the word “to convict” in Collins English Dictionary. Lo and behold, scholars of the English language state that “to convict” means to “pronounce someone guilty of an offence”. This meaning may apply in England but certainly not in Tanzania.
Imagine, if you were the victim of a crime and you were informed that the Court of Appeal quashed your tormentor’s conviction because the magistrate “found him guilty” before pronouncing the sentence when he should have “convicted him” before passing a sentence. Would you understand? No amount of lecturing Tanzanians on the evils of mob justice will bring this conduct to an end. We need to look into and address conduct which fuels mob justice.
The death of the “thief” was celebrated by the mob but was never condemned by the State. On paper, we should have Coroner’s Courts to enquire into deaths of people reasonably suspected to have died violently or of unnatural causes but in practice there will never be an inquest into the death of the “thief”.
His family and friends will never have the satisfaction of hearing a Coroner, representing the State, record and announce in open court a verdict that the “thief’s ” death was “unlawful”. We will never know who this thief was and where he was going.
He has been dehumanised and unless he is humanised, the society will be left forever believing in its core that the “thief” deserved exactly what he got irrespective of the frequent lectures from people, particularly in positions of authority that mob justice is in itself unjust.
These voices fall on deaf ears and are regarded as the voices of patronising have-it-alls, who simply do not know what it is like to live in a society in which personal security is not guaranteed by the very institutions set up for this purpose.
As I end this piece, I ask you to ask yourself one simple question, “if the institutions charged with administering criminal justice in Tanzania did so effectively and efficiently would Tanzanians resort to taking the law into their own hands?”. My simple answer is, I think not. Mob justice is but a symptom of the degeneration of the rule of law in Tanzania.
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