Ted Talk Tuesday – What happened when the USA banned the sale of alcohol?

Today’s Ted Talk touches on the current conundrum we face as a society on the affects that alcohol has on our crime rates in South Africa.

It sickens me to my core when I read yet another headline each and every week about child rape, women being raped, women being murdered by their boyfriends, neighbours, husbands, Grandmothers being beaten and stabbed, 18 month old babies molestered in hospital wards. It is something that happens every single day in this beautiful, troubled country we live in. I could see the genuine pain on our presidents face when he addressed the nation in June, when he spoke out against gender based violence and the “pandemic” that we face in this regard in South Africa. I think to myself if the prohibition of the sale of alcohol saves even one young girl from pain then it is worth the sacrifice surely?

However, I also believe this may just be putting a Band-Aid on a massive gaping wound. Will it not just encourage further criminality, police and governmental corruption and tax shortcomings on an already inadequate pool of resources?

What is the answer? How do we stop this pandemic of violence against defenseless children and women? There must be a fundamental issue with our society, perhaps with how our boys are being raised? Perhaps with the lack of the nuclear family in a very large portion of our society? The legacy of apartheid still lingering, men separated from their families to work in camps and mines? The HIV pandemic that left so many children orphaned to be cared for by an aunty, or neighbour or a sibling, where are they learning how to be a protector, a nurturer, a provider? These young kids have no role models to learn behaviours from? My mum always had a saying. “Show me the boy of 6, and I will show you the man”. Perhaps this is where liquor companies tax money needs to be channeled in order to make a long term impact on our society, on nurturing our youth?

This Ted Talk gives us a 4 minute history lesson on what prohibition in the United States achieved, their prohibition was also brought about from a desire to stem domestic violence and poverty.

Just like the Coronavirus pandemic, I think correcting the growing tide of GBV in South Africa is a marathon and not a sprint and prohibition is not going to achieve the desired affect in the long run.