By 041Culture Columnist Mvume Ndima
As more information tied to the Jeffrey Epstein case continues to circulate online, public response has ranged from horror to disbelief. In this week’s column, 041Culture’s Mvume Ndima reflects on the scale of the revelations, the systems that enabled them, and why none of what we’re seeing should be considered unprecedented.
So… by now we should’ve all seen it right?
As someone who was already aware of most of what was revealed in the Epstein e-mails (remember, conspiracy guy), I honestly feel conflicted by what I’ve seen so far.
To recap for those of you who are living happy and healthy lives away from the internet, Jeffrey Epstein was a guy who was alive once upon a time. He had loads of friends and was quite popular, he was friends with politicians, celebrities, scientists and royalty. But most importantly, he was a paedophile. A grown man who enjoyed the company of extremely young women, his emails say as much. At the time of writing, it is believed that there are over 6 million documents related to this case, and the scope of this man’s influence is large.
The conflicted feeling I have is very much connected to well… his connections and how the fact that while most people are horrified by the things that are being revealed. It makes me somewhat happy to know that the victims who were trafficked and born into this sick underworld can finally see some justice, but the thing that scares me is the fact that Epstein quite literally could not have worked alone. Much like Puff Daddy and R Kelly, a series of people around him had to either agree with what he was doing or turn a blind eye. The difference here (between Puffy and Jeff) is scale.
His (Epstein’s) friend, the Andrew formerly known as “Prince” WAS a member of the royal family of England. Drew had a couple weird cases of his own that made it impossible for the royal family to allow him to continue to claim any royal benefits.
Another associate named in documents related to Epstein’s broader social network was world-renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, who suffered from motor neurone disease which confined him to a wheelchair for most of his adult life. I mention these names because I find it baffling that royalty involving themselves with paedophiles is actually pretty common… Jimmy Savile was close to the Queen before she died, acting as a mediator between the late Princess Diana and her ex-husband, whatsisname. But the whole time, Jimmy was in children’s hospitals doing disgusting things to the most vulnerable people imaginable.
It would be unfair to point only at the UK when the Belgian royal family are equally associated with this sort of behaviour. Besides the creepy things like human zoos that the Belgians used to put on, there’s a curious case of a man named Marc Dutroux, as a sort of parallel version of Epstein, who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2004. In his trial he claimed (without evidence) that he was working on behalf of Belgian elite families and politicians, procuring children for their pleasure, which is a pretty convenient excuse if you’re staring at a potential life sentence right? Except, the 2004 judgement was his second time in court for the crimes of kidnapping, murder and rape of minor girls… he only served 3 years the first time he got caught.
So Dutroux’s convenient excuse sounds a lot more like a confession, realising now that he no longer had the support that let him get away with only serving a 3 year sentence from his 1989 conviction, I say all this to say that nothing about Epstein is unprecedented, it’s completely precedented, guys… It’s a function of the way the world operates on a certain level.
As more and more disturbing evidence of what they actually do with these abducted children begins to surface, watch how politicians react to it. Pam Bondi is an excellent example. When confronted by the victims of Epstein in some parliamentary session or another, she heard about the victims of rape and trafficking and her brain immediately went to the state of the economy. She wasn’t dodging the question. The two things are related in her mind.
You see, the Epsteins and Dutroux’s of the world are not rogue actors, creating a flesh market out of thin air that allows them access to millions of dollars (euros) and allows them to walk away practically unscathed when the law catches them. These men are engaged in one of the oldest professions in the world, the buying and selling of slaves, and the reason Ms. Bondi couldn’t muster up a single dusty care to give about the women in the room with her who are victims of the trade is because she didn’t see women before her, what she saw, was a bunch of expired stock.
As ever, it would be naïve to assume that no South African political or business figures have ever moved within similarly exclusive global social circles. Networks of wealth and influence rarely respect national borders, and history has shown that proximity to power often comes with a willingness to overlook deeply uncomfortable truths.
But in conclusion, and silly mental images aside, the act of stealing children is big big business. You remember when they used to show missing kids on the TV after Generations when you were little? You remember how few of them were ever found? Ja… It’s a mess outside.
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