The headline 67% of all abuse is intoxicant related hung gloomily on the telephone pole Monday morning. Ironically, this is not news and nothing to get excited about.
According to Prophet Amos of the Torah, one reason why the ten tribes of Israel were exiled from the Land of Israel was because of their excessive alcohol consumption.
In the Bible there are about 20 verses that speaks directly to the use and abuse of intoxicants. In Proverbs 20:1 “Wine [is] a mocker, strong drink [is] raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
Muhammed the Quranic emissary said that a habitual drunkard cannot enter paradise.
After around 3300 years of the Torah, 2000 years of the Bible and more than 1400 of the Quran, that people continue to use and abuse alcohol must personify human stupidity.
Besides the verbal, emotional and physical abuse that women and kids suffer at the hands of drunkards let us focus on just one aspect of alcohol use and abuse.
Over the weekend, news that the Road Accident Fund (RAF) banking accounts was frozen was not a surprise. The RAF is struggling to maintain the injured and maimed that most often the result of intoxicant drivers. We are losing a battle that is idiotic in origin.
That intoxicant drivers rule our roads is an established reality. Each year thousands of innocent people are mass murdered on our roads by drunkards and drugged-up drivers that do not care that the RAF costs billions to maintain or that their victims are kids etc.
Recently a singer was released after serving a short term in prison after he killed several kids walking to school. On arrest the singer was drunk and drugged according to media reports. The parents of the dead kids were not consulted on the musician’s release.
Logic suggests that the South African judicial system considers being drunk or drugged as a reasonable excuse for committing crime. Criminals are regularly absolved and reduced sentence imposed because the criminal alleges that he/she cannot remember.
Where is justice when a thug ostensibly cannot recollect the crime due to intoxicants?
Perhaps the reason why the Torah, Bible and Quran is ignored and why wisdom is side-lined, is because some political and judicial reps also abuse alcohol and drugs.
Is it perhaps now time that voters and taxpayers must know via a public process, whom amongst their elected officials and representatives are abusers or alcohol and drugs and thus refuse to take serious actions against those who drink and drive?
Cllr Yagyah Adams
Cape Muslim Congress