Graffiti in the ghettos
4 min readJul 18, 2023
I’m not sure how I feel about the artful graffiti on the tenement blocks in Manenberg, Bonteheuwel, Hanover Park and elsewhere on the Cape Flats in the City of Cape Town.
On a block of tiny flats five stories high in Bridgetown, there is a beautiful representation of a man of colour wearing mirror pilot sunglasses and licking a lollipop. These pieces of art have never be vandalised and speak of the hustle to survive and hope for a better future, completely unironically.
Was the intent of commissioning this art to uplift battered souls, or to prettify the narrow lives many marginalised people lead in little boxes, without radically improving their socio-economic conditions?
The tenements themselves have outside metal staircases, tarred playgrounds, men gambling on the corner and parked cars, some tyres blossoming with plant growth, other cars flashy and well
maintained.
Laundry is strung between blocks, and residents turn blind eyes to drugs changing hands. To inform on gangsters is signing your own death warrant. A few years ago, the police tried introducing a tip-off system to lead them to hidden gun caches in particular. Residents' survival instincts and street smarts caused this programme to fail, because whistle blowers could easily be found and dealt with.
People get murdered on the Cape Flats every single day, but because they are considered throw-away people, it almost never makes the mainstream news. Organised gangs living according to the prison numbers system, controlling turf, drug trade, gun smuggling, human trafficking, sex work and professional hits. From time to time, gang bosses have formal sit-downs with the top brass in the South African Police to negotiate manageable levels of crime.
This is the very same police who have been implicated in flooding the Cape Flats with confiscated weapons and refuses to enter areas where there are shoot-outs. It seems to be an approach of “they’re garbage, let them eliminate themselves .”
In this bizarre circular system of gang warfare, certain blocks are the territory of one gang. Any serious offenses, like encroaching on the the other gang’s territory (the next block on the same premises), leaders have a sitdown and if they decide to take violent action, residents are informed to stay indoors on the days of the shooting.
Countless deaths and serious injuries result from this supposedly civic-minded gang war: I met a young man who was paralysed when he was caught in the line of fire. It is as common as remarking on the weather, to say “They shot through our windows and my baby was caught in the crossfire.”
These are places of despair, where enslavement to drugs, ignorance and illiteracy, grown men grooming girls of 13 until they become mother’s at 14. Factions among people of colour run deep: coarse hair, dark skin and flat noses are badges of shame for those who worship at the altar of straight hair. Children play-act at being taxi guards ("ghartjies"), collecting fares and shouting "Claremon-Mowbrie-Kaap! (the route to Claremont, Mowbray and the City Centre.)” They aspire to enter the taxi business.
Today our minibus taxi stopped next to another with a preteen taxi guard (conductor). He smugly flashed a stack of bills (fares, not his pay) as his “matric certificate” (high school diploma). He’s been doing this job for 2 years and has seen too much violence, his job sedicing him into a dark world where money and machismo mean everything. He is already part of the club worshipping money, gold grills, violence and toxic masculinity.
Smaller boys do this work when their families pressure them to earn money. One young boy was stabbed to death over ZAR 5 (just over a US quarter).
My question is, at which point do you stop romanticising or joking about your ex partner assaulting you, or swear at your kids and expect respect? It seems hopeless, helping abuse survivors realise that humour is an unhealthy coping mechanism. Many of them had no mother figures, and this is their only reality.
Everyone wears new brand name sneakers and clothing, sometimes store bought or obtained for ZAR 30 from a meth addict. Most people smoke a cheaper, harsh cigarette and live on energy drinks and cheap township sodas. You need energy to hustle, and if you’re lucky, work a legitimate job.
Maybe because we’re too caught up in chaos, noise and living from hand to mouth, few connect our collective condition as Indigenous people to colonialism and the capitalist machine. It’s not "foreigners" (read African nationals residing in SA) taking “our” jobs - it’s about what they are willing to sacrifice while we, South Africans, wait for deliverance.
