A long history of being fed up: Anti-crime mobilisation on the Cape Flats: A case study

• Author: van der Spuy, E.
• Date: 17 November 2021
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.47348/SACJ/v34/i2a6
• Pages: 281-306
• Published date: 17 November 2021
• Citation: (2021) 34 SACJ 281

A long history of being fed up:1

Anti-crime mobilisation on the

Cape Flats: A case study2

ELRENA VAN DER SPUY*

ABSTRACT

Anti-crime mobilisation has a long and chequered history in South Africa.

Over the years, such forms of mobilisation have come in various shapes

and sizes. In this paper, the authors explore one example of a broad-based

anti-crime mobilisation that evolved on the Cape Flats from 1994 to 2006.

Documentary analysis and eld data allow reection on the social context

within which the Western Cape Anti-Crime Forum (WCACF) emerged,

and the political sensibilities and social aspirations that shaped its course.

The article considers t he local safety issues that domi nated the deliberations,

the mobilising strategies utilised, and the networks activated in pursuit

of community safety. The social history of the Forum as recounted here

hopefully provides insight into the key concerns of this par ticular initiative

as well as the kind of factors that shape, more generally, the fortunes and

misfortunes of anti-crime alliances. Such insights may be of comparative

use as the authors try to make sense of contemporary manifestations of a

myriad of instances of anti-crime mobilisation.

1 Introduction

South Africa, as Fourchard rem inds us, ‘has a long tradition of anti-cri me

organizations – civic or civilia n guards, parents’ courts, people’s courts,

neighbourhood watches, street committees, vigilante organizations,

to mention just a few – which ght against both gang activities and

what is perceived as the social degeneration of township life’.3 On the

Cape Flats too, as others have outlined, anti-gang mobilisation too

1 During the course of 2018 the residents on the Cape Flats once again took to the

streets to make public their concerns about deplorable living conditions. A myriad

of structures became involved in processes of social mobilisation. This time round

there was ery ta lk of being fed up or ‘gatvol’ (as local colloquialism would h ave it)

and promises of tota l shutdowns.

2 Ricky Rontsch and A nnie Kok assisted with arch iving the WCACF material as well as

editing the paper. Tha nks also go to two anonymous reviewers for their comments

on an earlier version of the paper.

*MA (Stell) PhD (UCT), Associate Professor, University of Cape Town.

3 L Fourchard ‘The politics of mobilization for security in South African townships’

(2011) 110 Af r Aff 607 at 608.

https://doi.org/10.47348/SACJ/v34/i2a6

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(2021) 34 SACJ 281

© Juta and Company (Pty) Ltd

has a chequered history.4 The historical contextualisation provided by

Fourchard serves as a reminder of the ebb and ow of civic energies

concerned with the safety concerns of communities constitutive of

the South African polity. It is against this wider historical canvass that

specic incidences of anti-crime mobilisation (such as the Western

Cape Anti-Cri me Forum – the subject of thi s paper) need to be situated.

At the end of 2017, a group of community activists from the Cape

Flats convened at a venue situated in a northern suburb of Cape

Town. They assembled to discuss the deplorable state of safety

confronting ordinary citizens who have long been trapped in lethal

conicts between rival gangs on the Cape Flats. It was noted that

the latest spike in armed, organised violence perpetrated by gangs

has had devastating effects on the communities. Corruption in police

circles and collusion with illicit cartels have further aggravated the

safety situation on the ground. The key question posed at the meeting

was how best to re-mobilise civic energies so as to project the safety

concerns of local communities onto the political agenda of the city and

the province. A working group was tasked to organise a province-wide

summit where strategic deliberations could take place.

On 24 March 2018, the summit was held in Pinelands. The event

was attended by 700 delegates with representation from community

police and community safety forums, neighbourhood watches, street

patrollers, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and community-

based organisations (CBOs) working in a wide range of sectors

primarily drawn from areas of Coloured settlement on the fringe

of metropolitan Cape Town. There was unanimous agreement that

the democratic state has failed in its constitutionally dened duty to

provide safety and protection to citizens on the Flats. The summit

resolved to establish the United Public Safety Front (UPSF). It was

tasked with the responsibility of mobi lising collective energies towards

safe communities and to do so in the spirit of ‘Unity, Hope and

Opportunity for all’. Three years down the line, the bold intentions of

the United Public Safety Front articulated so clearly at the summit are

still to translate into sustainable action. This loss of momentum on the

part of the UPSF has provided scope for others to occupy the public

space. What has become clear is that both percept ions and experiences

of marginalisation of communities on the Cape ats continue to fuel

collective actions. Promises of total shutdowns and people bandying

4 BE Van Wyk & WH Theron ‘Fighting gangsterism in South Africa: a contextual

review of gang and anti- gang movements in the Western Cape’ (2005) 18 Acta Cr im

51–60.

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