We have bigger problems than the klopse!
This weekend, the Cape Town culture season will unofficially be opened. Many klopse and nagtroepe will be opening their klopskamers and the hard work will start for the upcoming season.
But like with everything else right now, this will all be overshadowed by the spate of violence and killings experienced on the Cape Flats. It’s like the Wild West out here!
While out of touch politicians point the fingers towards absent fathers and delinquent youth (as opposed to actually tackling the problem head on with increased safety resources), the Cape Flats has become a battlefield, with many innocent people becoming casualties of this bloody social war.
Many klopskamers actually serve as havens for children from our communities. While they are there, they feel safe, get fed and are well looked after. This is sometimes very far removed from their circumstances at home.
I urge troupe bosses to take extra precautions to see to the safety of their members as they travel to their klopskamers and as they practise there. Work cleverly and work together. There is safety in numbers. If there is more than one troupe in a particular area, make contact and find out exactly when practice times are. Try and keep these times similar.
Share transport if klopskamers are near to each other. Why should one man drive all by himself to fetch another person in a gang-infested area, when there is a taxi picking up members from another troupe in the same area? This is not about individual troupes, it is about working together as a community.
Desperate times call for desperate measures - and as a community we are desperate for peace and safety.
So while the highly paid politicians pass the buck as to whose responsibility it is to see to the safety of the people on the Cape Flats, and the gangsters grow more brazen everyday, it is ultimately left to the ordinary citizens to make the best of this terrible situation.
I seriously hope I live to see the day when the politicians use the media to fight those shooting, injuring and killing innocent people on the Cape Flats - the same way in which they fight the klopse every year.
Newsflash Cape Town: We have bigger problems than the klopse.