BRING CULTURE AND DIGNITY BACK TO ‘BATTLEFIELDS’

OUR township streets are no longer “playing fields” but “battlefields”. To level a battlefield differs largely from a sporting arena.

The past couple of weeks tell a story on their own. People are gatvol.

I agree that we cannot just send in the army and mow down the “gangsters”.

They are children and have parents living in that same community. I think that every parent lives in hope that the “gangster child” will change. No parent wants to be told that their child has been gunned down.

I believe that the police must up their game and be serious about getting rid of the drug lords and close off their operations. Not the dealers only but also the big fish living in fancy suburbs.

However, once that is done, then what? The extreme social imbalances promote the need for alternative means of survival and that is in my mind a major factor that needs addressing. Through the Group Areas Act large pockets of “hell on earth” have been created.

However, these very same people are the backbone of our workforce. We take turns to work and as we get tired of boarding non-existent trains, being squeezed into overloaded defective taxis, being treated like sub humans and paid peanuts, even with a degree, we too melt into oblivion within crime or just fade away.

We cannot continue to march to Parliament like tin soldiers. We must FORCE sport and cultural activity back into our communities. Sports persons must refuse to play at Cape Town Stadium, Newlands cricket and rugby stadiums.

Coming to spend a couple of hours hitting a ball around is not even window dressing.

Actors, singers and musicians must no longer perform at The Artscape, The Baxter, Athol Fugard theatres etc.

The Cape Minstrels parading down Wale into Adderley Street must stop. The very same people kicked out of District Six and through unrealistic house price increases in Bo-Kaap, still go back to entertain from the townships.

Our everything was stolen but you cannot steal our sport, art and cultural prowess.

We can do our thing in our own backyards and the tourist with dollars, euros and pounds MUST come to us or the whole tourist industry in Cape Town will fall flat.

KENNETH M ALEXANDER Athlone