While tackling the challenges of Covid-19 which are certainly found in absolutely every industry and aspect of life, the country has turned a blind eye to a much more serious and devastating problem that has been manifesting in many ways in our school. As a nation, we are heading for trouble and something needs to be done before we reach that point of no return.
I have lived in Cape Town for five years with all bills paid by the Government of Botswana. It is indeed a time to continually remanence on and I wouldn’t want to miss that opportunity if it presents itself to me again. Life there is like somewhere in Europe but yet there is a big blot appearing at one corner of this great world class city.
There is basically very little crime in Cape Town compared to Gaborone. But not until you get to the Cape Flats. This is completely another world away from the peace experienced in Rondebosch, Pinelands, Constantia and Camps Bay with its sprawling pristine beaches of white sands.
The Cape Flats defines the flat area in the Cape Peninsula which apparently makes the flattest topographical formation in this beautiful part of the world. For nearly three centuries, this was the farming area that kept the city fed. When the coloured people were violently evicted out of their homes from District Six in the late 1960s, they came to be settled here in the Cape Flats.
Ironically, the apartheid government chose to accommodate them in flats in an area already known as Cape Flats. The attention shifted from the topographic description and instead went to become a new reference to the accommodation infrastructure (flats) on the land.
The Cape Flats have now become the epicentre of crime in the Cape if not all of South Africa. As someone with a security background, I was shocked to learn that certain parts of the Cape Flats such as Bonteheivel, Manenberg, Phillipi and some parts of Mitchells Plain are a no go for the police. If needed, they would come clad in bullet proof helmets and vests. It is like entering a war zone.
Crime is very high in these places and in a literal sense these townships have been taken over by criminal gangs and there is little rule of law here. There is crime, drug and gun running happening on the streets every day. To my surprise, churches and mosques have even been pushed to a point where they pay an extortion tax for protection. Families are equally required to pay that too.
The gangs are a new generation that was born out of District Six and they have created their own world, and so far its working for them. They are running a country within a country. They are not only running the townships, they are equally running the prisons as well and the gang members often class in these penitentiary institutions ending in blood baths and death.
Their parents who were born in District Six were achievers at all levels. The least of them were successful factory workers who drove the catalogue industry. In the past, Botswana and other countries in southern Africa depended so much on ordering fashion on platforms such as Mahumedis, Kays and many others based in Cape Town.
The District as it was fondly known was a cosmopolitan of successful people even though racism was doing its best to pull them down. Out of District Six came countless numbers of world class performers in all fields. Among the list is Abdullah Ibrahim also known as Dollar Brand in the circles of jazz music. This particular character landed in a township known as Mananberg and he made it popular as he continued to make his world class musical compositions there. One of the songs is known as Mananberg and indeed it is still a classical.
District Six produced the likes of Alex La Guma, a writer and political activist, David Barends, a successful professional rugby player and Bessie Head, a writer who chose Ga-Mma Bessie (Serowe) as her second home after fleeing apartheid in South Africa. The cherry on the District’s cake became Dullah Omar, the man who became the first Minister of Justice in post-apartheid South Africa. In the days of the District, it was such great triumph for a family to get one of their own graduate with a degree.
All this is now history when looking at the generation that followed. Reading this from Botswana, one might be wondering where it all went wrong for this former brilliant community of people. Just take a look at home and see how slowly we are being eaten away by the same cancer of anarchy.
Our schools have become a den of young criminals who have not yet reached their full potential. It seems as society we are oblivious to the happenings in our public schools and unlike the people of District Six, we will have no apartheid to blame. Violence is growing in our schools as it is equally targets teachers and students. The videos that are coming out of our schools are painting a totally grim picture for the future of our country.
I am still in a state of perplexity at the manner with which we are approaching these problems as society. We should be blowing the trumpet to raise the alarm because our country is under attack. We collectively need to do something and some of us should need not turn a blind eye to these events because we have our children in private schools. That’s a falls sense of security.
Most disappointing has been our parliament. These men and women have seen no urgency in leading the way to the fight against the growing anarchy in our schools which is the root cause of the collapse of our education system. I have come from St Joseph’s College in the early 1980s where public floggings became a panacea for lawlessness. Whipping on the open back and not buttocks should be re-introduced. And while this is happening in our schools, everyone is asking today; “O kae Molao?”
