Must protect facilities like Mendi Arts Centre
I’M writing this with great sorrow.
In the past weeks I have seen a very disturbing picture of the Mendi Arts Centre with its glass doors being bashed and broken by something I suspect was a big, heavy rock.
It is so painful to me and to many in my community who regard this facility as a beacon of hope and prosperity for the artists and those who are unemployed, especially young people.
As a community, we have to do away with this poisonous tendency of living your own life, doing you own thing, looking after your own business in a communal space, a neighbourhood.
We have adopted this tendency unaware and it is killing us all as a community.
When you see your neighbour down, you pass by, you don’t pick him up. When you see your neighbour’s child doing stuff, you ignore it and you don’t reprimand because you believe that’s normal, yet it is killing us as a community.
It is time we recollect our stolen memory and morals, which says umntu ngumntu ngabantu, that culture of the saying it takes a village to raise a child.
Then if we can recollect those values back to our consciences, we won’t see such acts and behaviour in our communities.
It’s time we protect what is ours, for us and future generations.
The municipality should quickly fence the Mendi Arts Centre before it’s too late.
I can see that the holes for fencing are prepared, but it should not be too long before the fence is erected.
Please people, stop destroying our Arts Centre, because you don’t destroy your sportsfields.
Mongezi Ncwadi, cultural activist, New Brighton, Port Elizabeth