POLICE Commissioner Bheki Cele’s request to MPs that he be called “General Cele” from now on is faintly embarrassing.
It is never edifying to see a grown man openly cherishing tin-pot honorifics as if these will somehow improve his status.
But it is more than embarrassing — it is a symptom of the rolling back of over a decade of attempts to transform the police from a para-military force into a proper investigative outfit with professional standards.
Democratic South Africa inherited a sick police “force” that had been honed for decades into a machine of political oppression.
There were those within its ranks who performed heroic acts of crime fighting, but there could be no mistaking the intention of the apartheid state.
It wanted to criminalise the struggle against apartheid and it wanted the police to be the instrument of this agenda.
The result was that the police were loathed by communities who were on the receiving end of their harsh treatment.
There were specialised units such as the riot police and the security police who committed awful atrocities in the name of their political masters.
It has taken sixteen years of democracy for the police to begin to lose this image and for communities to embrace policemen as crime-fighting agents.
The ruling party’s decision to allow Cele to throw this progress out the window in favour of a return to the militarisation of the police will once more undermine this trust.
Military titles are there for one purpose only — to send a message that the police intend to act as a military force, one that uses violence rather than proper police work to accomplish its ends. Shame on you, Field Marshall Cele.

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