Valuable for communities to share vision, common cause
It’s important to reflect on the human condition, not just during Ramadaan
THERE is more to the District 6-Bokaap boeka than meets the eye. On a pleasant evening on June 8, the District 6 and Bokaap community held a street boeka – the act of breaking the fast at sunset. This is a month-long spiritual and social endeavour of Ramadaan.
Ramadaan is a holy month where Muslims abstain from food and water from sunrise, reflect on the holy book, the Qur’an, and its deep meaning. Ramadaan is more importantly about deep and critical reflection of our human condition. The emphasis is on human and not only Muslim because the Qur’anic teachings, as those of the Bible and Torah, are addressed to all humanity.
The teachings of the Qur’an come alive when we interpret the deep meaning of the text into our contemporary social and political context. When this happens it’s a beautiful thing to behold. This is what the D6-Bokaap boeka was all about.
For all the communities in the city – from white and privileged or poor, driven off their farms or from their homes in the city, or the middle class struggling under the weight of the escalating cost of living – we all aspire to goodness naturally. It’s an innate human quality that no amount of social conditioning can eradicate entirely. Apartheid tried and failed. Within all our diverse communities in the city, we have the regressive, and narrow-minded alongside the progressives. Cape Town is an ecosystem of community that is out of balance where the regressive alien plants have over-powered the indigenous vegetation and, as in nature, this is in need of correction.
The boeka is an important moment in the history of the struggles of a large part of our community ecosystem; around gentrification of city neighbourhoods and our food-producing farmlands, the slow violence against our heritage and history by wealth accumulation dressed up as economic development, and a history of poverty and inequality manifesting on the current health of our community ecosystem.
The whole Cape Town community ecosystem needs to take a moment to reflect on the boeka, not just for its obvious value, that is, when two communities come together in common cause in an inspiring and uplifting setting.
But also where progressive voices out-bloom the regressive voices and put the latter in their proper place in the ecosystem. This needs to be supported, and nurtured. This is a time to reflect on its lessons and how we may build on this.
The first lesson of the boeka, for me as someone who has been struggling in our own community for 10 years, is the value of building local community structures. Community-based organisations (CBO) are the foundation of democracy. Where they exist they must be supported. They must be inclusive of all members of the community and democratically organised.
This is important but many fail to see the value today. But this was how apartheid was overthrown. CBOs give expression to our sense of place, our history, our heritage, the current problems we face, and our shared vision for the future. It is building a community and the essential building block of a well-functioning democracy.
The diversity in our community is as important as the diversity of the ecosystem of community in the city. This means the bergie sleeping in our street and eating out of our wheelie-bin is part our community. They are a symptom of an unhealthy community ecosystem.
A well-functioning local civic structure will build empowered citizens and lead to engaging with power in a meaningful way to deal with our service delivery needs.
This is one of two steps in the lesson to build a healthy community ecosystem.
The second step is for local communities to connect with each other. Diversity is nature’s way to maintain a healthy balance and it is also vital for systems’ stability. Mycorrhizal fungi form a network of hyphae in the soil that connect every living plant, tree, shrub and decaying matter in a healthy ecosystem. It is an information superhighway in our soil – likethe internet. It collects and disseminates information. It monitors the health of the ecosystem. Interestingly and importantly, the hyphae network offers solidarity and warns plants of imminent threats; then sends support in the form of nutrients.
In this process every community in our ecosystem should retain its own autonomy and voice because this protects and celebrates our diversity of culture, religion, ethnicity and class. This would form the foundation of our decolonial project; the foundation of 500 years of Western colonial expansion via political, social, cultural and economic domination based on one religion, one country, one racial group and the white male at the apex of this power structure.
Our planet is a diverse living and spiritual ecosystem community. Not one living organism is free from the chains of dependence. German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller’s points out the consequences of individualism thus: “First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
“Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
It’s when progressive organised voices via well-functioning civic structures connect with each other to network, offer solidarity and support, that we’ll build a vibrant civil society grounded in meaningful resistance.
Our democracy is not delivering on its promise of a government by the people for the people because we the people have left the work of the people to politicians, political parties and NGOs.
Our future and needs have become populist and divisive narratives – far removed from our lived reality in our communities. The most important political office is that of the empowered citizen who holds whoever is in power accountable in between elections.
As author Arundhati Roy warned, “The NGO-isation of politics threatens to turn resistance into a well-mannered, reasonable, salaried, 9-to-5 job. With a few perks thrown in.” Let us be reminded of her conclusion: “Real resistance has real consequences. And no salary.”
Humanity was blessed with the Almighty’s emissaries on Earth; Muhammad, Jesus and Moses (Peace and salutations on them all) who offer us spiritual guidance. They were social reformers and active citizens who applied the Almighty’s text in the social, political and economic context of their times.
CBOS GIVE EXPRESSION TO OUR SENSE OF PLACE, OUR HISTORY, OUR HERITAGE, THE CURRENT PROBLEMS WE FACE, OUR SHARED VISION FOR THE FUTURE