There is nothing illegal or unconstitutional about celebrating Guy Fawkes Day.
Nor is there anything wrong with celebrating public holidays like Youth Day, Heritage Day, Women’s Day, or even Valentine’s Day.
In our diverse, multi-cultural country, we are free to observe religious festivals like Christmas, Easter, Eid, Chanukah and Diwali.
Ons mense likes oek om vir ons foreign te hou.
We’ve imported Halloween, which is now a thing at schools. Fine.
Some locals believe they were born in Old Trafford and Auckland and will live and die for Manchester United and the All Blacks.
Whatever, the choice is yours, go mad. The constitution mos guarantees freedom of association.
You can’t exactly outlaw a holiday or special day.
But you can certainly ban criminal activities associated with these occasions.
Some of the mischief that people get up to on Guy Fawkes, you don’t need to ban that, it’s already illegal.
5 November has become a nightmare on the Cape Flats.
It’s a day when naughty laaities, armed with nugget, stones and other weapons gang up and terrorise neighbourhood people, young and old.
Mense are afraid to leave their homes, and some parents prefer to keep their kids out of school on the day.
This year we’ve seen the same old horror stories.
The City of Cape Town recorded 11 injuries and dozens of incidents of violent smearing.
Among these is a boy in Delft whose hands were injured by klappertjies, two girls aged seven and 10 were hurt at Strandfontein Pavilion along with four men, and four adults sustained minor facial injuries at Athlone Stadium.
And the arme pets. Shame.
One traumatised hondjie lost an eye, and another almost impaled itself on a fence trying to escape the explosions.
The City said what made this year even worse was: “They are no longer just targeting pedestrians, but also vehicles.
“The weapons that our staff confiscated included hockey sticks, golf clubs, condoms filled with paint and excrement...”
WTF?!
Sorry, but what does condoms filled with k** have to do with the notorious Gunpowder Plot under the British parliament in 1605?
No! This ends right here.
The City, Law Enforcement, Metro Police, Public Order Policing, SAPS... the whole bang lot of them need to be out on the street on 5 November to lock up these hooligans.
And while they’re in cooling off in the cells, they can learn how to celebrate Guy Fawkes properly, by singing: