Who’s in the mood to throw a pity party for Oscar Pistorius? Anyone? Or, like me, do you find his crime so disturbing it rather sticks in the craw to feel you’re being sold a “broken man” narrative?
Pistorius, 37, the South African double-amputee former Olympic sprinter, has been released on parole, after serving nine years for the murder of 29-year-old paralegal and model, Reeva Steenkamp. They’d been dating for three months when Pistorius fired his 9mm pistol several times through the locked bathroom door of his Pretoria home early on Valentine’s Day, 2013. Pistorius pleaded not guilty (claiming he thought there was an intruder). In a complex series of events, he was initially convicted of culpable homicide (similar to manslaughter), later changed to murder. Eventually, his sentence was increased to 15 years less time served.
Pistorius has been released into his wealthy uncle’s care at his sprawling gated compound in Pretoria, which has a swimming pool and tennis court (Pistorius will live in his own cottage on the grounds). It sounds better than most offenders have it, but I keep hearing how awful it will be for him. He will live in fear of reprisals, with increased security measures. He’ll be under strict parole restrictions until his sentence ends in December 2029: community service; curfews; banned from doing media interviews; mandatory therapy (for anger and gender-based issues); no alcohol or drugs, and so on. It bears noting that strict conditions apply to everybody on parole in South Africa.
Then there are the depictions of Pistorius. According to reports, he’s unrecognisable: broken, bloated, a chain smoker, bearded, grey-faced. Targeted in prison, he’s said to have drawn strength from his Christian faith. Now he may work for his uncle in his business, or undertake manual farm labour, train to be a Christian preacher, take up charity pursuits … Doesn’t it all sound marvellous?
This is what rankles: Pistorius can’t just leave jail, like any other convicted woman-killer. There has to be a victim-narrative with saintly flourishes. Far from the arrogant, volatile, chauvinist, gun-obsessed celebrity presented in court, he just wants to till Mother Earth and read his Bible. In other news, flowers have been arriving at the compound from well-wishers as if it were the Pistorius family who were bereaved. The pressure seems on to buy into the global redemption story of poor Oscar. Seriously? Shouldn’t it be: poor Reeva?
This has always been a complicated case, not least because South Africa has a big problem with gender-based violence (something Steenkamp campaigned against) and one of the highest global rates of femicide. The high public interest is also understandable. Pistorius is “Blade Runner”: six-time gold medal-winning Paralympian and the first amputee (born with fibular hemimelia, his feet were amputated as a baby), to compete in the Olympics (in 2012) on prosthetic blades. What a story. What a sportsman. When they got together, he and Steenkamp were viewed as a South African “Posh and Becks”. Then the murder changed everything. Or should have done.
This time, Steenkamp’s mother, June, didn’t oppose Pistorius’s parole, but she made it clear she doesn’t believe he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder (“My dear child screamed for her life loud enough for the neighbours to hear her”), or that he is genuinely rehabilitated.
For me, Pistorius’s story is about pity as powerful social currency. You saw it in court as he sobbed, howled, retched and walked around on his stumps to demonstrate his vulnerability. (Even if you make allowances for “court theatre”, there was such a lot of it.) It seemed to be there again hearing of Steenkamp’s father Barry (who died last September) visiting him as part of a restorative justice programme. Pistorius fell to his knees, weeping, begging for forgiveness, without actually admitting anything.
Watching the 2020 docu-series, The Trials Of Oscar Pistorius (five-plus hours engulfed in compassion for Pistorius), I came away with the dark feeling that Steenkamp was being sidelined in her own murder. Is this what’s still happening? Not victim-blaming, rather a form of victim erosion. Disappearing Steenkamp; placing her narrative a poor second. Just like in the bad old days when killers were the focus, and victims were forgotten. But things are more enlightened now. Aren’t they?
If he meets the terms of parole, Pistorius will be free by January 2030. He will be 43 years old. The parole ban on media interviews will lift and he will be at liberty to speak. Does Pistorius intend to use this powerful platform? Is it too cynical to view what’s happening now (the insistence on his dejection, isolation and suffering) as early brand rebuilding? The first steps towards laundering his reputation (a kind of compassion-washing) for public re-entry in 2030? We shall have to wait and see.
For now, let’s at least recognise the Poor Broken Oscar narrative for the offensive farce it is. Pistorius served some of his sentence and he will spend his parole on an affluent estate. He never “lost” anything: he murdered a defenceless young woman and he went to jail. Reeva Steenkamp lost her life.
Barbara Ellen is an Observer columnist
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