For South Africans, normality is a sliding scale. Record electricity blackouts and sustained water outages have crushed businesses, and caused havoc in hospitals and schools nationwide. It’s common to see car-sized potholes in the suburbs of Johannesburg as workmen weld burst pipes. Traffic light outages are a daily occurrence. The privations are often treated with the nation’s trademark humor. But now, even extraordinary, violent events have also become almost commonplace. In October, a heavily armed gang blocked off one of the busiest highways near Johannesburg as it blew up a cash-in-transit vehicle – a security van carrying cash. Video of the heist was captured on cell phones in real-time. Bystanders can be heard giving running commentary from an overpass. Cash-in-transit, or CIT, heists are one of the most dramatic illustrations of a crime wave that has shocked even the most hardened South Africans. Murder is at a 20-year high; someone is killed in the country roughly every 20 minutes, according to the most recent quarterly police crime statistics. Other serious crimes are also on…