Marianne Merten
Candlelight vigils, marches and prayer meetings may seem insignificant gestures in the face of guns and violence, but for many residents in gang-ridden Hanover Park on the Cape Flats these are the first steps to finding the courage to speak out and act.
Hanover Park residents are slowly finding their voice after a drive-by shooting two weekends ago proved too much for many of the ordinary men and women in the area.
Cassiem Daniels (37) and Thabit Muller (17) were killed and at least 20 others injured after gunmen travelling in two cars sprayed members of a social club with rifle and pistol bullets on the evening of Saturday June 12. Among those injured are one of the leaders of the Americans gang from Mitchells Plain, Igshaan Marcus, and his brother, who is based in Hanover Park. Community leaders and the local policing forum acknowledge the attack was aimed at the two.
Hanover Park community police forum secretary Adelaide Daniels says it will be difficult to change people’s attitudes. “Many say: `I’m not capable. Someone else must do it.’ We as coloured people have been brainwashed. The attitude is `I have a roof over my head, thanks.'”
She says much of this attitude is a result of being forcibly removed from tight-knit communities and dumped on the Cape Flats, far away from jobs and with few recreational facilities.
Many residents protect children and relatives implicated in crime. “We have mothers selling drugs for their sons. We have gangsters’ girlfriends selling drugs,” she says, adding many parents also bought their children guns.
But Daniels also knows of residents battling to earn an honest living in the face of the easy money the gangsters offer. Last Sunday 400-odd women, men and children took to the streets shouting: “No more violence in Hanover Park.”
Participating in the march took courage. One member of the local community policing forum, who prefers not to be named, says people are afraid. “They [gangsters] can easily see you and later target you in one of the dark corners.”
Often a family lives next to a gangster. When there are financial difficulties, he helps out with rent, food or school fees. In return, families are asked to keep guns or dagga in their homes, and the web of interdependency is established.
Says the police forum member: “They take the youngsters, give them a few gold rings, a Levi, Nikes, a cellphone and the youngsters do the merchant’s business.”
Yet the member knows many people would be prepared to pass on information to the police if they could do so without endangering their lives. “If you approach them on the street many will not speak to you because they are afraid to be seen by the gangsters.”
On another level, Daniels says, there is a dire need for education programmes at schools to keep children out of trouble, and after-school programmes to keep children off the streets.
She says the area needs to be upgraded. It is not enough to paint a block of flats, as happened earlier this year with much media fanfare. The main roads in the economically depressed, high-density residential area flooded after heavy rains this week. The few trees near the hospital are known as “the jungle” because they are the only trees around. The ongoing fight for a local police station is also on everyone’s mind. For three years, community organisations have requested a police presence for residents who still have to travel between eight and 15km to the station.
And there is no guarantee that local police will not warn the gangsters. Allegations are rife that some of them are being bribed. A container put up near the taxi rank has not been used as the satellite police station it was intended to be.
Daniels says the council also could do much to help. A lot of the drug dealers and shebeen operators have erected illegal attachments, known as “hokkies”, to their council homes. Several of the local dealers live in council flats but are known to have houses elsewhere – again in contravention of council by-laws.
“I feel Hanover Park is ignored by everybody. Even those who work here – the teachers, the doctors – they get in their cars at the end of the day and leave. They say: `We don’t live here. It doesn’t affect us,'” Daniels says.
On Sunday there will be another community meeting. “We want the community to tell us how to take it further,” Daniels says.
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