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I will admit that for a long time I bought into the notion that Oscar Pistorius killed Reeva Steenkamp in a jealous rage, after she had locked herself in a toilet cubicle to get away from him. The initial trial and subsequent appeals found nothing concrete to support that theory, and I’ve since come around to believing Oscar’s version of events (well at least the ones delivered consistently enough to be believed). But believing Oscars version of events doesn’t elicit any more sympathy in me.
let’s assume that everything played out just as Oscar says they did, and lets for a second imagine that Oscar’s imagined intruder in the bathroom was just that, an actual intruder and not a figment of his imagination who turned out to be his girlfriend.
This intruder would probably be male (the overwhelming majority of violent crimes are conducted by males), probably young, probably black (after all our population is predominantly black), probably poor (we can pretend otherwise, but poverty, race and crime in South Africa are largely interdependent), probably uneducated, disenfranchised and desperate. A criminal yes, but no less a human being than you, or I, or Reeva.
Were this the case, things would have played out largely the same that night, someone would still have died in that toilet cubicle, alone, afraid and defenceless. That someone would have meant as much to his family and friends as Reeva meant to hers, but his death would not be mourned nearly as widely or deeply.
Things would have played out very differently the next day and subsequently though. Oscar would have been hailed a hero, for ridding the streets of one more criminal. Some of us would be disgusted with the excessive force, the failure to give the hapless intruder an opportunity to surrender, but we too would be more understanding, after all desperate times call for desperate measures and all of that.
I would like to think that the legal process that would have unfolded would still have found Oscar guilty of murder, there would be less debate about dolus eventualis. There was an intruder in the cubicle, Oscar fired 4 shots into the cubicle in the knowledge that it would kill the intruder in the cubicle, and hence by firing those shots, Oscar’s intention was to kill.
But there would also be much more public support for Oscar, campaigns for leniency, a reduced sentence, house arrest in lieu of prison. We would want him to get on with his life, get back to training, marry Reeva, have babies and contribute to society. We would not be disappointed with a five year sentence and only nine months served. We would not insist he be convicted of murder rather than homicide. We would have fundraising rounds to help with his legal fee's, and embrace him on social media after all he’d be a hero who protected himself and his girlfriend from a “violent intruder”.
But he would be no less a murderer.
So perhaps it is us who should be on trial, for being so angry at Oscar for killing his beautiful blond girlfriend when we would have cared less had he killed whoever he imagined to be behind that door.
