What does justice look like?

Today in the paper, the Swazi Council of Churches has called for in inquiry into the deaths of three people related to the police. The highest-profile death was 'Scarface', an alleged serial rapist who the police claim was shot and killed while he was fleeing.

There is a lot of controversy surrounding the shooting, and it probably wasn't good that the police used deadly force on a fleeing man. But in a country where guilty people often go free or pay a small fine, it's somewhat hard to fault them if they did kill him without the dignity of a trial.

Justice often looks odd here, and I'm not always sure how I feel about it. A few weeks ago, I read an article about a man who was stealing electricity. He was caught by two guys posing as electric company workers and paid them a E50,000 (~$6,000) bribe to stop them from reporting him. The next day, he paid a E100,000 bribe to two guys posing as police officers to keep them from arresting him. When this all came out, the police issued a statement saying citizens should check the identification of people instead of paying them. And I couldn't figure out who was right and who was wrong in the situation. Obviously the guy was defrauded of a lot of money, but he was stealing and bribing. And the police are partly at fault for perpetuating a system where bribery is common.

At the same time, it's not easy for me to simply impose my upbringing and beliefs on Swazi culture. Some of the reasons that things work differently here is because the culture works differently, and I can't just force everyone to think like I do, no matter how many problems it would solve.

Nevertheless, the warped justice and flat-out injustice is still something that bothers me regularly. Hopefully that struggle is something that is good for my intellectual and ethical development. But it's something that one cannot be a part of life here without encountering.

-Ben