GEDIG: VERSKROEIDE AARDE?
Chris Botha
Abstract
A poem, Verskroeide Aarde? by Maj-Gen (Ret) Chris Botha
Keywords
CV – Maj-Gen (Ret) Chris Botha
Verskroeide Aarde?
die ou polisieman skud sy kop
en hou die populis-politikus dop
die boere was soldate, nie waar?
die boer-soldaat ons vyand-paar?
ons mag die lied sing om hul te moor
dit is immers ons struggle-koor
dit laat die ou polisieman tob
politikus is aan’t mense fop
die ding gaan erge konflik baar
hoe gaan die polisie daarmee vaar?
êrens in die pad af, iewers voor
gaan die rasse inmekaar in boor
terwyl die gewone mense van ons land
aanmekaar geknoop is met ewige band
(Hartenbos, 28 Maart 2025)
Chris Botha*
Chris Botha is a policing pracademic (1) or a policing acaprac (2) who served in the former South African Police (SAP), the University of South Africa (UNISA, as a lecturer in Police Science) and in the South African Police Service (SAPS) in the Senior Management Service until early retirement on 30 June 2006 in the rank of Assistant Commissioner (the current rank of Major General), making a total of 34 years (3). Post-retirement he works as a researcher, author, facilitator of learning, assessor, and moderator of higher as well as vocational education, training, and development. He is the editor of The Compassionate Confronter (4), a quarterly popular science e-journal distributed under the auspices of Hugenote Kollege (a private higher education institution in South Africa) and was editor of Praetor, an academic journal in the South African policing magazine Servamus during the 1990s. To date, Chris has worked in or with 19 countries on 5 continents of the world. He has published 3 textbooks on policing currently in print; 6 chapters in books and 26 other publications (such as academic research articles); served as a co-editor and co-author of a recent local policing textbook (5); published a chapter in a new international policing textbook (6) and was part of a team tasked with the recent feasibility study on a crime and policing studies university for South Africa. He has delivered 10 papers at international as well as at national conferences and holds four South African post-school academic qualifications, the highest being the MPhil in Personal and Professional Leadership from the University of Johannesburg.
(1) Policing practitioners who are active in academe;
(2) Academics who actively participate in policing issues;
(3) Indicating the focus on either praxis or academe during his professional life;
(4) See https://confronterjournal.wixsite.com/confronter);
(5) Smit, J. (ME), Alemika, E.E.O., Botha, C., Ngantweni, G.X., Van Mollendorf, G. (2022). Policing in Africa: Towards an African Epistemology. Cape Town, South Africa: Juta and Company (Pty) Ltd.
(6) Botha, C. (2023). Police Conflict Management in South Africa: An Autoethnographic Reconnaissance. In: Staller, M.S., Koerner, S., Zaiser, B. (eds) Police Conflict Management, Volume1. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-4096-3_15
