by Brett Herron
The City of Cape Town choreographed its management of the devastating taxi violence and economic disruption this month to suit the DA’s identity politics agenda.
The crude message it sought to convey to the DA constituency, predominantly comprising demographic minorities, was that the DA-led City would not kowtow to Blacks.
The message was underscored by the deployment of Mayco member JP Smith to front up the City’s response to the taxi industry. Smith is widely regarded outside the DA as the verkrampte securocrat in Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis’ committee.
Instead of empathizing with members of violence-wracked communities, and seeking to calm the situation, Smith’s confrontational posture was like pouring petrol on the flames.
Flames that have been doused for now without truly being extinguished because for as long as the City of Cape Town continues to view its control of the taxi industry as a political lever, the conflict will continue to simmer.
To be clear: Santaco, in this instance, and the taxi industry more broadly, has no right to disregard regulations or the law. They have no right to engage in violence that terrorizes predominantly poor communities, to destroy property or to sabotage the economy.
The taxi industry and the City of Cape Town are jointly responsible for the smooth operation of what is a critical component of the public transport system in this City.
For the Mayor to send Smith to a gunfight with a seething industry was not designed to calm the situation. It was a cynical response designed with an eye to the general election next year. A modern equivalent of Tony Leon’s notorious 1990s campaign to Fight Back which was widely interpreted as a call to Fight Blacks.
Among the most damaging failures of the ANC-led government over the past 30 years has been the failure to transform the structure of the economy inherited from apartheid. The overwhelming majority of citizens of colour remain on the periphery where they were forcibly placed generations ago.
South Africa now sits on a tinderbox of still largely colour-coded poverty, unemployment, hopelessness, and rising anger. Many people feel at this point that they have nothing left to lose; their feelings are compounded by levels of inequality among the most extreme on earth.
To resort to identity politics in this environment is to demonstrate a fundamental lack of integrity and emotional intelligence – besides, disregard for the goal many still harbour of developing a cohesive society.
The taxi industry isn’t going to go away; nor should it, because in the present public transport landscape it supplies a critical demand.
The City must fulfil its obligations to manage licensing and law enforcement in collaboration with the industry, and in a manner in which the industry feels its dignity is not constantly impugned.
At the same time, the City should be demonstrating much more compassion and concern for the plight of poor communities who inevitably bear the brunt of taxi violence, and the culture of fear it creates. Compassion and concern that Smith cannot provide.
The industry, in turn, must find ways of improving its relationship with communities who are caught in the crossfire. And it must adhere to the rules, fairly applied.
The industry doesn’t regard Smith as a collaborator, but a hardline enforcer.
The Mayor must remove Smith from socially sensitive situations and replace him with someone more suitable to conducting dignified discussions and collaboration.
* Brett Herron is the GOOD party’s Secretary-General and a Member of Parliament.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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