In Tshwane, you have Boko Haram terrorising the community, while the Talibans are also trying to make inroads into the same city.
On the sidelines, the Pharisees are slowly moving in, also in an attempt to make their presence felt.
No, you're not reading about Islamist extremists trying to infiltrate South Africa. And the Pharisees mentioned here are not the biblical chaps who gave Jesus a hard time.
Reports about Boko Haram, the Talibans and the Pharisees doing business in South Africa have driven some citizens up against the wall.
Relax - or not - the Boko Haram, Talibans and Pharisees mentioned here are the names of criminal gangs. They chose these scary names for a reason.
All rivers have a source, and by all accounts the source of South African gangsterism, the river that continues to rage today, is a man called Mzuzephi Mathebula.
Having fled his home in Bergville, in present-day KwaZulu-Natal, in 1886, Mathebula found himself in Johannesburg.
After a number of odd jobs in the city, he joined a ragtag army of vagrants who lived on the outskirts of the city, and stole and mugged people for a living.
Their major targets were white households. Because of his fearlessness and leadership skills, Mathebula - who had later been renamed Nongoloza for his unnerving stare - soon organised this loose group of thugs into a semi-military organisation.
He appointed himself inkosi enkulu, the king. Below him were men who acted as army generals, lieutenants, judges and executors. He modelled himself after King Shaka, who paid attention to detail when it came to organising his army.
By the time Nongoloza took charge of this new army, he had discovered the Bible.
As historian Charles van Onselen notes in his book New Babylon New Nineveh, the criminal leader drew inspiration from the Old Testament book of Nahum, which told of the rebellious spirit of the people of Nineveh.
Nongoloza's group called themselves AbaseNineveh, but were more popularly called Umkhosi Wezintaba, the Regiment of the Hills, mainly because they lived in the hills.
ORIGINAL REVOLUTIONARY
By stealing from the rich, Nongoloza and his followers believed they were doing what the Ninevites in the Bible had done - rebelling against the status quo. That is why some historians have branded him the original revolutionary.
Over the next 30 years the regiment would grow by leaps and bounds. When members of Umkhosi got arrested, they brought into the prison system their discipline, fearlessness and love for hierarchy.
Soon they were in charge. They were more powerful than the warders. When an unaffiliated young man was arrested and thrown in jail, it made sense for him to show loyalty to the leaders of this gang if he was to be safe from beatings and gang rape while inside.
Today, Umkhosi no longer exists, but many prison gangs such as the 26s and 28s call themselves the children of Nongoloza. They have embellished his story and persona so much that it is almost unrecognisable from the original.
The tradition of gangs basing their names on sociopolitical phenomena can thus be traced back to Nongoloza, who believed that his gang, by stealing from the wealthy, was fighting a just political cause.
Even when there is no obvious political cause to their shenanigans, some gangs have used names that are vaguely political for the simple fact that they are popular and generally drive the fear of God into the hearts of some members of the community.
The names of the Gestapos and the Berliners, who were concentrated mainly in the Western Native Township in the 1950s, were also politically inspired, based on the brutal reputation of the Nazis, for what they did in Germany and elsewhere during World War 2.
The celebrated author and former journalist Don Mattera was a leader of the Vultures, which was smaller than both the Berliners or the Gestapo.
In his book Memory is the Weapon, Mattera writes: "The Berliners, who numbered about 200 or 300, owned more guns than the local police station, and they used them effectively...
"They extorted protection money from wealthy Indians and Chinese, and terrorised the population of the Western Native Township."
At the height of the Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya - where anti-colonial activists went about butchering white people - between 1952 and the 1960s, there arose in Soweto a criminal gang called the Mau Mau. It was feared, it was vicious.
In the 1970s, one of the most prominent gangs in Diepkloof was the Biafras of Zone Six. The name is vaguely political, surely inspired by Nigerians who took up arms and tried to break away from the main republic to form their own Biafra State in south-eastern Nigeria.
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At around the same time, as Clive Glasser points out in his book Bo-Tsotsi: The Young Gangs of Soweto (1935-1976), "Meadowlands was dominated by two major gangs - the Hong Kongs and the Black Power Gangs".
It must be noted that these developments took place at a time when there was political ferment in black South Africa, a phenomenon influenced by Black Consciousness. The shorthand for this movement was Black Power, based on the popular slogan of the time. The tsotsi elements then hijacked this noble name for themselves.
The Black Power Gang co-existed with other gangs that did not have particularly political names - the Mongols, the Hyenas, the Jaws, the Hazels, the Dirty Dozens, amaDamara and amaKwaitos; the last were formed in the 1960s.
Some of these names were copied, so that you also had amaKwaitos in Durban. In that city there were also Amalaita.
Again, it must be noted that, even when the names were not political, they were inspired by prominent events or movies. The Dirty Dozens were inspired by a movie of the same name featuring Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson.
RUTHLESS ENDEAVOUR
Other gangs that derived their nomenclature from movies and American fashion would include the Americans of Sophiatown, under the leadership of Kortboy, whose real name was George Mbalweni.
Although Kortboy himself gained notoriety as a ruthless murderer, the Americans were for some time seen as African Robin Hoods because they stole only from whites.
Interestingly, in Cape Town today there is a feared gang that calls itself The Americans.
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Unlike the original Americans of Sophiatown, who were given the name because they dressed in flashy American clothes, the chaps in Cape Town are not known for their sartorial elegance. They are bigger and more ruthless, operating alongside the Hard Livings.
The two function as umbrella organisations for many smaller gangs that are allied with the two super gangs.
Smaller gangs in Cape Town that might be allied to either of the two umbrella gangs include Respectable Peacefuls, Naughty Boys, Clever Kids, Young Dixie Boys, the Junky Funky Kids, Wonder Kids, School Boys, the Yuru Cats, the Mongrels and the Glamour Boys.
Not to be mistaken for the clumsy football team from Phefeni, the Glamour Boys are a vicious gang that has been in business since the 1970s. They haven't lost their venom.
Back to the Boko Haram operating in Pretoria. While the original Boko Haram in Nigeria operates under the guise of enforcing an extreme form of Islam, kidnapping people and demanding ransom to fund its operations, the Pretoria version hijacks vehicles and changes the vehicle identity numbers.
From spaza shops they collect R2 000 a month in exchange for not taking them over through violence. They collect on the 25th, 26th and 27th of each month.
Considering the creativity and imagination that goes into coming up with a gang name, one wouldn't be surprised if, one of these days, a new gang cropped up under the name Service Delivery Gang or The Deliverers. Those names are full of possibilities.
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