The author says the Mitchell's Plain community is being destroyed by gang wars.
Image: File picture
Jacques Baartman, Rocklands
I have said before, crime and growing unemployment remains the Achilles heel of the new South Africa.
The Apartheid government refused to fix it.
The new democratic government seems incapable of doing so.
At the rate we’re going now it appears we need divine intervention for a biblical miracle to save our children and community.
I'm referring to "Community, police meet after deadly week”, Plainsman, April 9, reporting on the deadly gang turf war ravaging our community for a considerable period of time now with no prospect in sight of an end to all the senseless killings any time soon.
My limits of tolerating all the lies and deceit from our useless and incompetent self-styled leaders to end this low-intensity war has been reached.
I am a loyal, interested and patriotic South African and like many want to live in a more prosperous and safer community. I am tired of having to read the headlines of deadly shootings every week and see how this community I have come to love is being ripped apart and destroyed.
Hundreds of millions of valuable taxpayers’ money is being spent to train and deploy law enforcement all over the Cape Flats. In the process, we are being misled into believing they are winning the war against crime and gangsterism.
It is pretty evident and obvious for all to see they’re not winning the war.
In fact, they have already lost the war after having wasted hard-earned taxpayers' money.
Nelson Mandela said,"Sports have the power to change the world." He also said,"Sports speaks to youth in a language, only they understand.”
In this powerful words of wisdom lies the solution to help solve the problem of crime and gangsterism and it is pretty obvious for everyone to see, except where it matters most.
It is said, if it is not broken, don't try and fix it. An example of this is the Mr Price High Schools Soccer League, which made an undeniable impact to reduce youth crime and gangsterism within the community and which was stopped for some people's own narrow sectional, personal and financial interests.
These people use sports to make a living and treat our municipal facilities meant for the community as if it has been sold off into the hands of private individuals.
Part of the problem in Mitchell’s Plain is that our leaders are having too many “talk shops” to listen to their own voices, looking good and lying to our people, instead of working and cooperating with people who run programmes that actually work to bring about meaningful change in lives and the community.
It's always about them and what they do and never about where we can help or work collectively to improve things for the greater good of all and not only a select few or individuals who don’t even live in Mitchell’s Plain but decide what happens or don't happen here.
Too many of our people are happy with what is happening but want to cry and question when things go horribly wrong as it is now.
The reality is, if we as ordinary members of this community don't join hands to fight the scourge of crime and gangsterism, unemployment and ultimately poverty, then we might as well concede defeat now.
Gangsters have learnt from Apartheid that if you use brute force then you can control masses of people and it's working for them to drive fear into our community.
Maybe it's time to use their own strategy to drive them out.