As you may or may not know, the next World Cup is scheduled for South Africa in 2010. Many present and former residents see this as a recipe for disaster, and for good reason. Most would agree that three of the major venues, Johannesburg, Durban, and Capetown are cities where lawless mobs of disenchanted blacks run rampant and threaten both classes on a regular daily basis. If you Google the Johannesburg Times, you will be shocked to find numerous stories every day about all different kinds of good and decent individuals, whose lives have been tragically cut short by crazed lunatics who never ever know their victims...and sadly, never will.
[inline:sheldie-cohen-wr.jpg]Consider the latest tragedy, Johannesburg businessman Sheldon "Sheldie" Cohen, shot dead while waiting for his 16-year-old son, Noah, to finish soccer practice. Cohen, the former chief executive of Amalgamated Appliances and a Harvard Business School graduate, was murdered around 8pm on Monday outside the Balfour Alexandra Football Club, in Highlands North. He was talking to his father, Jack, on his cellphone when fatally shot in the neck. Realizing something was horribly wrong, Jack leapt into his car and raced to the club. Sheldie's killer was one of three men who seconds before had tried to take the cellphone of another parent, Joss Miller who was waiting outside the clubhouse in her car, Miller told The Times she saw three men loitering around the clubhouse and the parking lot. “They walked past me and stood where Sheldon’s car was parked. “One of the guys came to my car, opened my door, slapped me and demanded my cellphone. That's when I ran screaming to the clubhouse. “Then, I heard a gun shot,” she said. Club vice-chairman Jorge Patricio was in the clubhouse when the men attacked Miller. “I was in the office and heard her screams in the parking lot,” he said. “Five seconds later I heard a ‘pop’.” Another parent, John Killos, said everyone heard the shot. So, it seems safe to assume that Cohen's son, Noah, had most likely heard his father's murder take place...pathetic, for sure. “We went down to the parking lot and, while we were standing there, Jack (Cohen’s father) drove in,” said Killos. Jack got out of his car and asked where Sheldie was. “ We went to his car and saw his body slumped towards the passenger seat,” Killos said. Club coach and director Mark Abro said he pulled Cohen towards the driver’s seat and realised that he had been shot dead. Abro said: “His body was slumped forward and two boys had tried to hold him up so he could breathe.” But, tragically, it was all for naught.
Cohen, dead at the scene, was described by close friends as a truly special individual...hugely charitable, caring, loving husband and committed to his sons. Devastated, as were many friends all over the globe, Jack Cohen looked “bewildered” and sobbed uncontrollably at his son’s house in Melrose North, where angry friends and family gathered Monday night.
If this anecdote is hard to stomach, imagine the number of potentially explosive situations just waiting to materialize when money-spending foreigners from all corners of the earth convene in South Africa in two years. Does this really sound like a place to stage the most watched sporting event in the world? It wasn't even a safe place for Sheldie Cohen to watch his son's soccer practice.