Sports can combat crime

Jacques Baartman, Rocklands

I have said it before, crime and growing unemployment remain 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 are going now, it appears we need divine intervention or a biblical miracle to save our children and community.

I'm speaking about "Community meets with police after deadly week of gang warfare", April 9, reporting on the deadly gang turf war ravaging our community for a considerable period of time now, with no prospects in sight of an end to all the senseless killings.

I'm an open book and easy to read, but my limits of tolerating all the lies and deceit from our useless and incompetent self-styled leaders to end this low-intensity war have 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 that they are 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 these 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 that if it is not broken, don't try and fix it. The Mr Price High Schools Soccer League, which made an undeniable impact to reduce youth crime and gangsterism in the community, was stopped for some people's own narrow sectional, personal and financial interests.

They use sports to make a living, and treat our municipal facilities meant for the community as if these have been sold off to the hands of private individuals.

Part of the problem in Mitchells Plain is that our leaders are having too many talk shops to listen to their own voices, look good, and lie to our people, instead of working and cooperating with people who run programmes that actually work to bring about meaningful change in lives and communities.

It's always about them and their actions, never about how we can collectively improve things for the greater good of all, rather than just a select few or an individual who does not even live in Mitchells Plain yet decides what happens here.

Too many of our people are happy with what is happening, but want to cry and ask "Where did things go so horribly wrong?" The reality is that if we, as ordinary members of this community, don't join hands to fight the scourge of crime and gangsterism, unemployment and poverty, then we might as well concede defeat now.

Gangsters have learnt from Apartheid that if you use brute force, 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.