Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Gatvol Capetonian comes under fierce attack
A CONTROVERSIAL community group called Gatvol Capetonian has been attacked online for being racist and stirring racial tensions.
Crystal Abrahams said: “I’m so sick of this race issue. When are people going to stop the race thing and start realising that it doesn’t matter what colour you are?
“For goodness sake, the country is falling apart, crime is destroying communities and ending lives. Stop fighting each other and start fighting the system that created the chaos.”
Gatvol Capetonian is calling for an independent Western Cape without black people from the Eastern Cape. The group was formed last month as land grab protests in the province started in Hermanus and later Mitchells Plain. They claim to represent coloured people and most supporters are from areas where service delivery protests are rife.
Another Gatvol Capetonian critic, Clement Meyer, told the group: “I am gatvol of the racist drivel spewed out by these Gatvol Capetonians, they rather attack fellow poor groups of people. F*****g racist idiots.”
Gatvol chairperson Ebrahiem Davids, from Portlands, Mitchells Plain, is a former member of the Cape Party which also called for an independent Western Cape.
He said they opposed most big parties such as the ANC and DA and were calling on smaller parties to unite.
“Our people don’t want to hear about politics any more. They want to move forward. I want to tell my people to rise up and be recognised,” said Davids.
The group’s spokesperson, Fadiel Adams, from Lentegeur, Mitchells Plain, said their goal was to secure homes and social services for “people of the Western Cape”.
“I have a dream where we don’t have racism and have an independent state. That will save us. We have all the land we need to farm. There will never be a hungry person in our new country,” said Adams.
“I am not a racist. We have never shown hatred towards blacks. This is about fairness, justice and equality. We have welcomed people from the Eastern Cape until we discovered they don’t want us here. They want our land.
“The Western Cape is our home and the only way we can save it is if we have total independence. Everybody not born in my province before 1994 must pack up and go home,” Adams added.
“We can instantly uplift everyone on the Cape Flats and we won’t need to be talking about land grabs. We are subsiding people who never did a damn thing for this province.”
Oscar Lyons, from Eerste River, is the group’s media liaison officer and handles its Facebook page. He has posted a number of videos online which highlights what the group calls “double standards”.
One video shows “our coloured Capetonian sister, Prudence McPherson, being accosted and mistreated by a black police officer”. Throughout this video, McPherson’s breasts are exposed as the police officer holds her by the neck.
Another video, which has had 85 000 views, shows an “angry black woman shouting obscenities and making threats to a white woman, with multiple police officers present”. Lyons said: “We are not trying to be politically correct. The purpose is to raise awareness of what’s actually happening. When we highlight double standards we are labelled as racist.”
Other videos show the group’s members talking to people in low-income coloured areas about housing, social services and poverty.