Domestic Violence

Our constitution states that each individual has the right to adequate housing. Of course and naturally this is one of your essential rights as a human being. Now please note the word ‘adequate’ because slatting up a hokkie on an open piece of field next to a freeway is NOT adequate.

And when the ‘boere’ stieks uit and breaks it down, you want to break down the whole area. An area you wanted to come live in not too long ago. Like that possessive burk that cuts up your clothes because you broke up with him. If I can’t, nobody can.

That unhealthy sense of entitlement just makes my bors warm.

In the past few weeks, the country has experienced sporadic outbursts of protest action; some of which were too close for comfort. I could hear the gunshots and commotion at Strandfontein Road/Pelican Park  but the Mitchell’s Plain/Siqalo protest particularly had me by the ovaries.

And it has led me to come to a sad realisation: where there are shacks, there is chaos.

Personally, I don’t believe in protesting. I don’t feel that it yields the desired result. But this is a democracy en ons is supposed to saam staan and it too, like housing, is a right.

But why should one man’s stance trample another man’s rights? Or rather why should one man's right infringe on another's?

Why are we starting out with looting and vandalising? Why are we blocking roads in an attempt to make life miserable for all? Why are we breaking down what our fellow brothers and sisters have built up? Aren’t we all in this struggle together? Shouldn’t we all be marching to Parliament instead because our fight is with Government?

Government, who has promised but not delivered.

And how great that Siqalo ‘residents’ have been promised homes now. But what impression does this leave the rest of us? That the only way to get the Governments attention is to burn down the place?

Is South Africa just prone to violence? Did we honestly think that after the rule of Apartheid is no longer that the violence too would end? Isn't that violence what got us here in the first place?

Do we still engage in violent protesting because it might bring forth change?

And what has changed? Our patience and understanding towards each other? The lack of tolerance we have with one another?

For years our people have fought.

They are still fighting.

And now they have turned on each other.



[Here is a free Guide to Protesting Lawfully from Right2Know]