A Necessary Evil by JJ van der Merwe

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In truth I suspect there was little difference in their lives compared to the time before Order Number 38. They were the most feckless scum imaginable. I am sure in the future liberals, if such things still exist, will look back and be horrified at what we did to them, but the truth is that they were not humans. I still remember them at school, their hate-filled, leering rats-eyes, complete absence of respect or empathy, thinking themselves the clever ones. They were the monsters, they were the ones who would have destroyed this country if we let them. I hated them- we all did. Not an uncontrollable rage, but an implacable, utterly merciless desire to see them removed from our society, the society they poisoned like a canker for so long (7) .

I remember once accompanying a Family Support Officer, a friend of mine, on her rounds- weekly visits to some of the many troubled homes inside the SA. What I remember most is the smell and filth inside the house, the floors strewn with yoghurt pots and crisp packets, the animals- emaciated, untrained wretches- shitting and pissing everywhere, humping my friend's leg as she walked through the door. The mother- there was no male presence in the house, of course- sat on the sofa surrounded by her brood's detritus. She was obese, stank of sweat and animals, and spoke in a dead, whining rural-estate accent. The children- God help them- were in a similar state of decay, dry skin, dandruff, body odour, stained clothes, dead eyes and flat voices. My friend was a kind woman, and she tried to help these kids- she'd brought a game they could play and helped the mother do some of the neglected household tasks. I did not interact with them- the regarded me and my uniform sullenly and with uncomprehending blank mindless faces. They did not respond well to my friend's best efforts, and as we left, she confided to me that the place had barely changed at all since they were put on the Priority Register. She told me the mother had fleas, and the children scabies. Part of me felt sorry for the children, all of the children in the SA. It was not their fault they had been born. It would have been better, even before what was to come, if they had never existed at all (8).

Do you find that despicable? Believing it would be better for Chav child never to have existed? I do not. Consider the facts of those children's lives- multiple fathers, a mother who cannot cope even with simple tasks in life, devoid of any motivation, of any sense of purpose even faced with the products of her own promiscuity (and that of the fathers- I found them equally disgusting and in many cases worse (9)). We, raised by decent people, cannot comprehend the nature of those children. It is why it is such an affront to us- they were fundamentally changed by their upbringing. Watching those children play with my friend in that putrid kitchen, on that sticky formica table hastily cleared, one could imagine them as ordinary children. But as soon as a dispute occurred, they turned to violence, hitting each other and screaming abuse.