Reclaim the Cape Flats from parasitic gangs
- William Gumede
A new more comprehensive approach are needed to combat runaway gangsterism on the Cape Flats in the Western Cape.
This should include calling a state of emergency, deploying the army almost permanently and turning the area into a focused special economic development zone.
The Cape Flats should be called a State of Emergency, and the South African National Defence Force should be permanently stationed in gang areas, particularly around schools, communal and recreational areas, business, and state property. Close-circuit camera surveillance and drones should be extensively introduced in similar ways China has done in many of their cities to detect gang activities and crime.
Key gang leaders must almost immediately be rounded up en-masse and prosecuted for comparatively smaller wrongdoing, such as tax infringements. Such a strategy would be similar to the way US authorities tackled mob bosses during the 1920s Prohibition-era, when they found a successful way to attack organized crime through targeting mafia bosses for tax evasion infringements.
There needs to be a special inquiry to investigate the main causes, the perpetrators of gang violence and the reasons for police failures in gang violence. The Western Cape continues to record the highest number of gang-related murders in the country, with 263 cases recorded between October and December last year alone, and children increasingly shot or stabbed in gang violence - 79 children were killed between September and November last year. Most of the child murders in the province were gang related.
In February this year, four-year-old toddler Davin Africa, was shot and killed in his sleep, in the Westbank township, after gang shootings outside his home. It was the second child of the family killed in gang violence – Davin’s older sister was killed by a stray bullet fired by gangsters in November 2023. Eleven of the top thirty police stations dealt with murder cases are in the Western Cape.
There has to be a fostering of a new communal culture whereby gangsters are not seen as heroes by children and the youth. Gangs are increasingly recruiting children, arming them, deploying them to commit violence, crime, and recruitment. State public services, infrastructure and policing on the Cape Flats must be dramatically scaled up. There has to be state, non-state and community alternative, relevant activities to gangsterism, crime and youth lack of purpose.
For many young people there are truly little creative activities on the Cape Flats. Township residents who made it big, often move out to the suburbs, and never return, so local youths have very few present local heroes. Being part of a gang make many feel they belong, give many youths recognition and make them feel they are men or women.
The rise of gangs is also much to do with the moral breakdown in communities. During the 1980s, Cape Flats youth had gangs, churches, politics, and sport as outlets. Sadly, sports, culture and music in government schools have essentially been abolished in the post-apartheid-era. Churches have become increasingly corrupt, exploitative, and self-serving. Politicians and public servants behave no different – corruption, bling, and crime, then the publicly despised gangsters.
South African mainstream society is experiencing a moral breakdown, political, traditional, and religious leaders are frequently ensnared in corruption, violence, bling, tribalism, and bigotry - which fosters the environment for gangs and gang leaders to become alternative ‘moral’ leaders.
Gangsters have increasingly funded political parties, joined political parties or started their own political parties. This has officially made gangsterism “legit.” Imprisonment is increasingly becoming a badge of honour. Many political leaders now sadly equate political leaders who during the anti-apartheid were jailed for opposing the apartheid government as the same gangsters going to jail for crime in the post-apartheid era. Communities need coalitions of parents, schools, community organisations, business, traditional and religious organisations, the police, military, and local state organisations.
There has to be a society-wide push – in the form of social pact-like collaborations which should include the state, civil society, business, schools, community, religious, cultural, and sport organisations, to rebuild good societal moral values. When the ANC was the majority party at national government, minorities, had been perceived to have been marginalised by the government. There are many government departments and state-owned entities that look like mono-ethnic enclaves, with people from only ethnic group or village. This means that for many youths from minority groups, even the state appear hostile to their ambitions, hopes and dreams. It is extremely critical that the South African state at all levels, are inclusive of all the country’s groups – and seen to care for South Africans of all ethnic groups.
Parents are key in preventing youth turn to gangs. South Africa’s black communities have large numbers of single-parent homes, no-parent homes, and absentee fathers – environments which predispose youth to joining gangs. There has to be a cultural education program in black communities to get fathers to take parental responsibility; to get responsible adults males to volunteer as male mentors to youth.
Gang leaders must be targeted for prosecution for crime, and to recover stolen assets. Criminal proceeds from prosecuted gang members must be used to compensate victims to fix public assets damaged by gangs. Community service and prison labour must be re-introduced instead of prison sentences in certain cases, and gangsters must be made to work as part of community service or prison labour to clean, fix local infrastructure and public assets.
Nevertheless, not all poor youths turn to crime. Community work should be re-introduced as a form of punishment for more minor crimes. There is a lack of community cultural, sport and recreational activities for young people in townships. Cultural, sport and recreational activities at black schools are increasingly absent in the post-apartheid-era. Schools must be repositioned to be not only centres of book learning, but also a post-school culture, sports, and recreation activities. Civil society, business, and cultural organisations must partner with schools to do so.
Many potential mentors in the townships, have in the post-apartheid-era moved to the suburbs. This means there are very community heroes – and gangsters with the power, money and influence are increasingly “heroes” for local youth. A targeted basic income grant, linked to entrepreneurial skills development, democratic civic education, to poor families could help soften poverty. There has to an extensive education campaign to teach young people from early on – nursery school, that gangsterism is not cool.
It is critical that the social, economic, and educational inequities that drives gangsterism, violence and drug use, should be addressed. Companies should be given tax breaks as incentive for establishing themselves in the area – and soldier should be stationed outside companies to protect them.
Children and youth in the area that are trying to find positive pathways must be supported by the community, the state, and schools. Schools must introduce gang and drug prevention programs. After school activities, including cultural, sport and recreation is critical. Educational programs must foster self-esteem, individual agency, and self-love. Morals, ethics, and democratic civic education for youths are key – especially where parents are not doing this. But adults with children must also be taught morals, ethics, and democratic civic education as conditions to receiving social welfare.
Local community organisations, civil society and business must be involved in these alternatives after school activities. Adults with the time on-hand, who not have school going children should also be roped into these programs to do mentoring. There has to be community programs for vulnerable youth who have dropped out of school and encouraging them to return to school.
Communities must establish community police forums. These community organisations must become more interventionist, ensuring that gangsters do not loiter, drink alcohol in public and harassing locals. But the police and military must similarly take action against small public infringements by gang members. South African police and metro police must walk, cycle and drive in neighbourhoods, rather than standing at roadblocks at main roads in the suburbs. Finally, large local and foreign companies investing in South Africa could be asked then in lieu of giving black economic empowerment shares to political “capitalists”, politicians or career BEE entrepreneurs who solely established businesses to become BEE partners with private companies or get state contracts, should invest in gang-infested areas, or support youth critical skills programs or sport, cultural and music development programs.
William Gumede is Professor of Practice, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand, and author of Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times (Tafelberg).
In the late 1980s he worked as a volunteer community organiser at the Mitchell’s Plain Advice Office, tackling the rise of youth gangs on the Cape Flats.