“We’ve been standing here for 26 seconds and nobody has been raped”

A quote which reveals the callous attitude and sustained denial which, for a long period of time, defined the ANC’s response to the high crime levels in South Africa. Said on 2 February 2000 by the late minister of safety and security, Steve Tshwete, and former minister of justice and constitutional development, Penuell Maduna. The two were speaking on the American television program ’60 minutes’, during a CBS broadcast, and commenting on the statistic that one person is raped in South Africa every 26 seconds, something they clearly thought they had disproved using their own special kind of logic.