I write with great sadness today because later this morning I am required to go into court to defend myself against charges which may or may not have been rightfully brought against me by a policewoman.

My sadness, however, stems from the fact that I was arrested, charged and held - but denied the right to lay charges in return, even though the woman (who was not in uniform and was driving an unmarked car) failed to stop at a stop sign and as a result damn near knocked me off my bicycle.

The speed with which both of us were travelling, I could have been killed.

I, you see, had the right of way - but it seems I do not have the rights of an ordinary citizen because I chose to tangle with a cop.

My experience of six hours in the cells is of brutal, willfully stupid people who are entirely unable to defend the law without resorting to bullying and who are completely incapable of applying the law because they are cowards who choose to attack only soft targets.

It’s not as if mine is an isolated case (read the papers any day). I live, and had the bad luck to pound the roof of my potential killer’s car, in Knysna. But on Sunday, a colleague in the media was arrested and held for eight hours in Durban for taking a photograph of a cop who was engaged in smashing up the traders’ tables in a market that has been operating legitimately for 17 years. The reason she took his photo? He wasn’t wearing a name badge, and she wanted to be able to identify him in court.

(It’s a measure of the stupidity of the man that after she was released, the reporter found that she still had his photo on her camera).

The cells are inhumane. The conditions under which alleged criminals are held are inhumane. And the system is inhumane.

At the Global Media Face-Off at this year’s Indaba, I said this to the commissioner of police: we all know that South Africa has the ability to safely host mass events (witness the Rugby and Cricket World Cups, and the IPL). But what about policing at street level? What is being done about the level of crime in our homes?

He was unable to offer a satisfactory response.

And now I’ll add this: if the cops, the police, are unable to obey the law at the lowest level (stopping at a stop street, for goodness sake!), how is South Africa to guarantee the safety of our visitors into the future? (you see it all the time - WHO stops at a stop street in South Africa? And if the cops can’t - who’s setting the example?).

With 366 days to go to the kickoff for FIFA’s World Cup - which is undoubtedly the biggest opportunity that will come our way in our lifetimes - and with our police behaving the way they do, how the hell is this country going to guarantee the safety of the world when it visits us in 2010?

I’ll be thinking, as I go into court this morning, as I go into the maw of a system that is corrupt, ineffective and inefficient, of how the tourism industry in this country will fare into the future.

And I think my answer will be that unless we - the industry - take up the question of crime and, more significantly, of policing (because I’ve learned that crime is a two way street, and that without effective and informed policing, crime will never be controlled), we will deserve the harvest we reap.

Now go away on holiday - it’s in the economy’s best interests…