Criminality is always the result of poverty. Countries that

Host: The streets of the township glowed under the amber light of weak street lamps, their halos trembling against a curtain of dusk. The air carried the smell of dust, fried food, and smoke — the familiar symphony of survival. Dogs barked somewhere in the distance; children’s laughter still echoed faintly between tin shacks and cracked concrete walls.

The city — Johannesburg, restless, bruised, alive — was caught between two worlds: the promises of freedom and the hangovers of history.

On a quiet corner, beside a wall covered in faded murals of Nelson Mandela and freedom slogans long since vandalized with graffiti, Jack and Jeeny sat on overturned crates. Between them, a single lantern flickered, its weak flame struggling against the night wind.

The sound of music from a nearby shebeen — jazz, sharp and weary — drifted through the air like smoke.

Jeeny: looking around, softly “Jacob Zuma once said, ‘Criminality is always the result of poverty. Countries that experience such a fundamental change as we have — we had the apartheid regime and must now develop a multicultural democracy — must necessarily pass through a phase of high crime rates.’”
She paused, her gaze distant. “You can hear that truth in the air here, can’t you? Like it’s built into the rhythm of the place.”

Jack: lighting a cigarette, voice low “Yeah. You can feel it under your shoes. Every crack in the pavement’s a scar that remembers.”

Host: The lantern flame caught the smoke from his cigarette, twisting light and shadow together in the humid dark.

Jeeny: “He’s right, you know. You can’t dismantle decades of inequality without chaos. Poverty doesn’t vanish when you pass a new law. It lingers, like hunger — invisible until it bites.”

Jack: exhaling smoke “True. But it’s not just poverty, Jeeny. It’s betrayal. People were promised justice. They got rhetoric.”

Jeeny: “Rhetoric doesn’t fill stomachs.”

Jack: “No. And when justice becomes abstract, desperation becomes policy.”

Host: A police siren wailed faintly in the distance — not alarming, just familiar. It was the heartbeat of a nation still learning to breathe.

Jeeny: “You ever think crime is less about greed and more about grief?”

Jack: “Grief for what?”

Jeeny: “For the lives people were told they’d have — but never got.”

Jack: nodding slowly “Yeah. Poverty’s not just empty pockets. It’s a daily reminder that the system didn’t see you as human. And when a person’s dignity dies, morality follows.”

Host: The wind carried dust and ash across the street, swirling it into small eddies. A boy ran past barefoot, chasing a plastic ball patched with tape.

Jeeny watched him, her eyes soft but tired.

Jeeny: “You see that? That’s the miracle of this country — the will to play in the ruins.”

Jack: “And that’s the tragedy — that kids grow up thinking broken is normal.”

Jeeny: quietly “That’s how survival becomes identity.”

Host: The night thickened. Somewhere, a generator sputtered and died, plunging a section of the block into darkness. The music stopped for a moment, then resumed — louder, defiant.

Jack: “Zuma was trying to rationalize it. He was saying: transformation has a cost. That crime is the growing pain of democracy.”

Jeeny: “And maybe he was right — partially. But saying crime is inevitable can become an excuse to tolerate it. Poverty explains it, but it doesn’t absolve it.”

Jack: “Right. Understanding is not forgiveness.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Poverty might breed desperation, but choice still defines character.”

Host: A pause fell between them — not disagreement, but contemplation. The lantern flickered, sputtered, then caught flame again, steady this time.

Jack: looking into the light “You know, when you strip everything away — the politics, the ideology — crime is just the human cost of forgetting to care. When wealth becomes a wall instead of a bridge, people start digging tunnels.”

Jeeny: “And we call them criminals instead of casualties.”

Jack: “Because it’s easier to punish a thief than confront the hunger that made him steal.”

Jeeny: “That’s the oldest story in the world. Cain didn’t kill Abel out of greed — he killed him out of envy. The crime came from inequality, not evil.”

Host: The moon appeared above the rooftops now — pale, bruised, a witness rather than a judge.

Jack: “Still, if poverty causes crime, what causes poverty?”

Jeeny: quietly “Greed wearing civilization’s perfume.”

Jack: “That’s cynical.”

Jeeny: “That’s history.”

Host: The night deepened. The music from the shebeen shifted into something softer — a trumpet solo, lonely, reflective.

Jeeny: “You know what I think Zuma missed?” she said. “That poverty isn’t just economic — it’s emotional. It’s when people stop believing they belong to anything. That’s when they turn against the world.”

Jack: “Because the world already turned its back first.”

Jeeny: nodding “Exactly. The moment a person feels invisible, the rules stop mattering.”

Host: He looked at her for a long moment, then out toward the silent rows of corrugated rooftops stretching into the horizon.

Jack: “So what’s the cure?”

Jeeny: “Empathy, maybe. Opportunity. Real investment in dignity. But those things take time — and power hates waiting.”

Jack: “So the cycle spins. Poverty births crime. Crime justifies control. Control deepens poverty.”

Jeeny: “Until compassion breaks the circle.”

Host: The camera would pull back slowly — the two of them sitting in the glow of that small, trembling lantern, surrounded by the whispering hum of a city still learning how to heal. In the distance, the lights of downtown shimmered like distant promises — visible, unreachable.

Jeeny lifted the thermos, poured two cups of lukewarm coffee, and handed one to Jack. “You know,” she said softly, “the world loves to call criminals ‘monsters.’ But most monsters were born human — they just ran out of options.”

Jack: taking the cup “And the rest of us? We ran out of excuses.”

Host: The music rose again — faint, fragile, full of longing.

And as the scene faded to black, Jacob Zuma’s words echoed, stripped of politics, heavy with truth and warning:

“Criminality is always the result of poverty. Countries that experience such a fundamental change as we have — we had the apartheid regime and must now develop a multicultural democracy — must necessarily pass through a phase of high crime rates.”

Because freedom without equality
is a promise made in hunger.

And when justice takes too long to arrive,
desperation becomes its own ideology.

Crime is not born in evil —
it’s born in neglect,
in the spaces where opportunity died
and empathy never came.

The remedy is not more fear —
but more fairness.

For until every man’s hunger is fed,
the ghost of injustice
will keep walking the streets
of every so-called democracy,
wearing the name we fear most:
human.