Until last week I hadn’t heard of this character Jub Jub. Apparently he is a musician and some sort of celebrity. He was a contestant on the current series of Survivor South Africa but asked to be sent home early from the island because he was afraid he had a diseased penis. On the few episodes he appeared in he came across as a lazy little tosser and I don’t think his fellow contestants were terribly sorry to see the back of him. Mysteriously his diseased prick was no longer newsworthy when he arrived home so I think we can safely assume that he didn’t like the idea of having to put any effort into supporting his tribe on the island. Jub Jub isn’t a team player.

Last week he and a buddy ran out of talent while they were drag racing Mini Coopers and ploughed into some onlookers killing four teenagers. According to press reports the first thing Jub Jub and his buddy did was to get on their cell phones and check with the insurance company that they were covered for drag racing while under the influence of either narcotics or booze.

It’s a great pity that the police arrived and took the two into custody because there was a chance that some real justice would have taken place on the streets and they would have been torn limb from limb. There are times when mob justice is far preferable to the creaking and pedantic machinery of the law. Now they are safely protected from the baying mob and if they have any sense they won’t even apply for bail. They’re much safer in a police cell.

The charges were rather dramatically upped from culpable homicide to murder which is worrying because I’m not sure a murder rap can stick unless there is what the law I studied referred to as “malice aforethought”. It’s a long time ago now (about 40 years) but for a murder charge to work you need the mens rea and the actus reus; in plain English, the evil thought followed by the evil act. So while the charge of murder may look very serious indeed and satisfy the public’s lust for revenge it may be an elaborate way of letting a connected brother off the hook. After all, who can name the dead? Are they celebs? Are they friends of JuJu Malema? Do they party with the black diamonds? If the answer to any of the above is no then their lives are insignificant. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I was watching a news clip on Sky this week which described how rich and well connected Russians (translation: approved thugs) are allowed to drive at high speed in the fast lane in their luxury limos. Last week one of the plutocrats crossed into the oncoming traffic (as he is permitted to do) and killed a mother and daughter in a head on collision. The witnesses say it is the plutocrat who was at fault because he was driving recklessly but the official view is that the well connected can do no wrong. So the police turned up and pronounced the tragic accident all the fault of the dead woman and her mother who were driving quite legally in the correct lane. A man is left without a mother and a wife and will probably get a bill for the plutocrat’s car repair. The anger and the frustration of the Russian people at these frequent abuses of power is growing and so should our anger be growing.

When we read of the ANC’s spin doctor, Jackson Mthembu, being arrested for alleged drunken driving early one Cape Town morning and then breaking into the “Kill the boer” song in a radio interview then we know we are on a par with corrupt Russia. According to reports some officers at Mowbray Police station refused to open a case docket when they realized the drunken buffoon with the stupid grin in the charge office was a well connected ANC member. Thankfully the officers who had arrested him made sensible alternative arrangements. Clearly Mthembu couldn’t give a damn about the law because he knows his buddies will get him off.

Maybe the same will happen to Jub Jub. Malema will intervene and point out that he was just having a bit of innocent fun and that it’s the whiteys who just don’t understand the black culture of drag racing. My guess is that a docket will be lost, an entire file will go missing, the charges will be inappropriate, a date will have been altered, Jub Jub’s name will be spelt wrong or the cars will have found to be faulty (watch out for this one BMW) .

I’ll be very surprised if Jub Jub spends a significant time in prison and even more surprised if Jackson Mthembu loses his job or is in any way inconvenienced just because he was as pissed as a parrot early in the morning. This my friends is the country we now live in. The tribe has spoken.